Why opposing the Equal Rights Amendment is pro-woman
By / Mar 17

This U.S. Congress is considering a joint resolution that would eliminate the deadline for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. 

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that was first introduced into Congress in 1923 and an amended version passed in 1972. Proponents of the amendment say that it would merely clarify that men and women have equal rights throughout the United States. 

But as critics have forcefully argued for the past century, the ERA would be used primarily to strip women of any distinctives and, in many areas of life, would put them at a disadvantage in relation to men. 

Attempting to erase gender distinctions

If promoting equality was the true goal, the ERA would be unnecessary. Numerous laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and the Title IX Amendment of 1972, protect women from discrimination on the basis of sex. The Supreme Court has also established protections for women in a variety of rulings over the past 50 years. 

But the push for the ERA is not about promoting women; it’s about erasing all gender distinctions. The ideological perspective behind the ERA is in direct opposition to the biblical view of gender, which emphasizes the idea that men and women have distinct, complementary roles in the family, church, and society. Scripture makes clear that men and women were created with different strengths and weaknesses, and these differences should be embraced rather than rejected. Genesis 1:27 states that, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In this verse we see the beautiful reality that men and women are created equal in worth and dignity and yet were made distinct and non-interchangeable. 

Attempting to erase gender differences causes significant harm to all of society and especially—as the transgender movement has proven—to women and children. One of the reasons for the attempted revival of ​​the ERA is to provide a shortcut to the process of outlawing gender distinctions that has been used in recent years by the federal courts. A series of rulings have reinterpreted the meaning of “sex” and “equality of rights” in ways that have expanded abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. 

From the founding of the country until a few years ago, the term “sex” was once used in federal laws and regulations in reference to biological sex. However, in recent years, federal courts have interpreted this term more broadly to prevent any distinctions based on gender identity and sexual orientation. 

For example, in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), the Supreme Court held that the prohibition on sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 extends to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The court reasoned that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity necessarily involves sex discrimination, because an individual’s sex is inherently tied to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The ERA would codify such reasoning into the U.S. Constitution. The version approved by Congress in 1972 and sent to the states reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” Approval of the amendment would supercharge the efforts to reinterpret sex in a way that privileges the preferences of gay and transgender men over the rights of biological women—and make it nearly impossible to challenge such laws that specifically protect women.

Other areas of concern 

Pro-life issues: The ERA would also threaten the hard-won gains that came from overturning Roe v. Wade. As the use of various state-level ERAs have shown, it would make it nearly impossible to implement state-level restrictions on abortion. We’ve also seen how such reasoning has been used at the federal level. In June Medical Services LLC v. Russo (2020), the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The court found that the law placed an undue burden on women seeking abortions, in violation of Roe. The court noted that laws that restrict access to abortion may have a disproportionate impact on women because of their biological sex. The overturning of Roe returned such issues to the states. But the ERA would put them back in the control of federal legislators.

Education and scholarships: Passage of the ERA would also harm girls and young women by eliminating women’s programs and scholarships in all areas of education. Title IX currently allows for programs and scholarships that are exclusively for women, but the ERA would strike that down since any program or scholarship that excludes men would be discriminatory. Removing such efforts to level the playing field would be a blow to women who worked hard to gain representation in such areas as science, technology, and sports. 

Additionally, adoption of the ERA would mean the end of single-sex colleges. It would also force the sex integration of entities such as fraternities, sororities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, and Boys State and Girls State conducted by the American Legion. Public restrooms would also likely have to be unisex in order to avoid violating the constitutional provision. Shelters specifically for women experiencing homelessness and prisons designed specifically to house women would also likely be deemed unconstitutional.

Family structure and policy: The ERA would also have negative effects on the family structure and family policy. For example, the ERA would be used to challenge any laws that recognize the unique roles of mothers and fathers in parenting. It could also be used to challenge laws that provide benefits to mothers, such as maternity leave and flexible work hours, and prevent the protection of abused women. Currently, many states have laws that provide different levels of protection to men and women who are victims of domestic violence. The ERA would require states to eliminate these kinds of gender-based distinctions.

By attempting to erase the beautiful God-created distinctions between men and women, the ERA works to deny reality in a way that would cause further damage and harm to women and girls. Rather than helping women achieve parity with men, the amendment would enshrine within the U.S. Constitution that there should not be any legal distinctions ever made to protect women. Christians should oppose the ERA, not because we are opposed to equal rights, but because we are genuinely pro-woman. 

Understanding the Equal Rights Amendment
By / Mar 17

On this episode, Lindsay Nicolet talks with Hannah Daniel about the Equal Rights Amendment and why it’s harmful, especially to women. We also discuss a review of states policies that cover the areas of human dignity, religious liberty, family and marriage, and the sanctity of human life. 

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Explainer: What’s going on in Iran, Ethiopia, and China?
By / Oct 21

Over ​​the past few weeks there have been a number of international incidents that are worthy of our attention and prayer. Here are three you should know about from Iran, Ethiopia, and China.

What’s going on in Iran?

Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran has had a law requiring all women—regardless of nationality or religious belief—to wear hijabs that cover the head and neck while concealing the hair. The Gashte Ershad (guidance patrols) are the “morality police” tasked with enforcing this and other dress codes, as well as modest behavior. The patrols are usually composed of men and stationed in vans in public areas. The patrols generally target women, who are taken to a ​​police station, correctional facility, or re-education center, where they are taught to dress “appropriately.” 

Earlier this month, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by a patrol in the capital city of Tehran and allegedly beaten while inside a morality police van. She was taken to the hospital where she remained in a coma before dying three days later. 

Amini’s death sparked outrage and protest throughout the country. Women in the country have posted videos of themselves setting fire to their headscarves and cutting their hair in public to chants of “Woman, life, freedom” and “Death to the dictator”—a reference to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

School children are protesting their leaders on an unprecedented scale that may prove difficult to contain, notes CNN. In attempting to put down the protest, an estimated 201 people—including 23 children—have been killed by Iranian authorities. The United Nation’s children agency UNICEF has also called for the protection of children and adolescents amid Iran’s protests. 

How to pray for this situation: Pray that God will protect the children and women of Iran, that the people will obtain freedom and protection for basic human rights, and that the church in Iran will be free from persecution. 

What’s going on in Ethiopia 

For the past year, the Ethiopian government and a regional military group have been engaged in a struggle for power and control over Tigray, the northern region of Ethiopia. Global leaders have so far hesitated to call it a genocide, referring to it as a civil war, or the Tigray War. But the atrocities committed by the Ethiopian and Eritrian governments make it clear the conflict is turning into a genocide. 

United Nations-backed investigators say all sides, including the Tigray forces, have committed abuses, but that the Ethiopian government is using “starvation of civilians” as a weapon of war. Tigray has been under a blockade for 17 months, and an estimated one million people are at risk of starvation. Because they are cut off from medical care, women are also dying during pregnancy or within 42 days of giving birth at five times the rate before the war. Children under 5 are dying at twice the pre-war rate, often because of easily preventable reasons. 

Altogether, an estimated half a million people have already died in the conflict. Tigray is “one of the worst manmade humanitarian crises in the world,” says the European Union foreign policy chief.

How to pray for this situation: Pray that the upcoming peace talks will bring an end to the conflict, that the genocide will end, and that the people of Ethiopia will find healing and restoration.

What’s going on in China? 

The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party began this week in Beijing. The 2,296 delegates will represent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 96.7 million members in reelecting the current leader, Xi Jinping.  

The 69-year-old Xi was due to step down in 2023, but in 2018 he further consolidated power by having his party change the constitution to remove the limitation that no Chinese president shall serve more than two consecutive terms.

Xi Jinping was elected as the president of the People’s Republic of China in 2013. In addition to this role as president, Xi also serves as the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (putting him in control of the country’s political party) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (which makes him the commander-in-chief of China’s military forces). He also is head of so many other smaller decision-making bodies that he’s been called the “Chairman of Everything.”

After his first four years in office, the Communist Party voted unanimously to incorporate “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” into the Chinese constitution, an honor previously reserved for Mao Zedong and his successor, Deng Xiaoping. This change enshrined Xi’s political philosophy into the country’s supreme law and made any challenge to him a direct threat to Communist Party rule. As the BBC has noted, schoolchildren, college students, and staff at state factories are required to study this political ideology.

The reelection of Xi means the continuation of human rights abuse that have been the hallmark of his presidency. Under his rule, more than a million Uyghurs, a majority Muslim ethnic group living in Central and East Asia, have been detained in a network of concentration camps. The atrocities against them include forced abortions, rape, sexual abuse, sterilization, internment in concentration camps, organ harvesting, human trafficking, scientific experimentation, the sale of human hair forcibly taken from those in concentration camps, family separation, forced reeducation of children, forced labor, and torture.

In 2021, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted the “Resolution 8: On The Uyghur Genocide,” becoming the first major denomination or convention of churches to speak up on behalf of Uyghurs and use the label “genocide” for Xi’s crimes against humanity. 

How to pray for this situation: ​​Pray for the Uyghurs, that they will find earthly protection and an end to the persecution, and that they will obtain ultimate salvation by putting their faith in Christ. 

What did women think of Jesus?
By / Sep 12

My personal study of the Scriptures has been enriched by wondering, “What was that really like?” This question feels particularly relevant to the stories of those who came face-to-face with the God-man, Jesus Christ, and lived to tell about it in the Gospels. Author Rebecca McLaughlin gives full treatment to this sort of curiosity in her book Jesus Through the Eyes of Women: How the First Female Disciples Help Us Know and Love the Lord (The Gospel Coalition, 2022). 

Before we get into her masterful debunking of certain myths and stereotypes, let me deflate one on the author’s behalf: though women are in the title, this book is not just for women, and it is not even really about women. This is a book about the person of Christ, and it is for all those who want to know and follow him more. The fresh perspective it offers us is an aide to that lifelong endeavor. 

The book is also for those who are questioning—or even deeply skeptical—about Jesus and about the Bible that tells of his improbable life, death, and resurrection. McLaughlin has spent plenty of time considering the cynic’s vantage point, with books that include Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion in 2020 and The Secular Creed: Engaging 5 Contemporary Claims in 2021. She effortlessly brings them along in this project as well.

Birthed out of McLaughlin’s own inquisitiveness, Jesus Through the Eyes of Women was written at “breakneck speed” in late 2021, said Ivan Mesa, TGC’s editorial director. It reads easily, too, as if penned in nearly one sitting. Though there is plenty to underline in a print edition, the author’s British accent makes the just over 4-hour audiobook a delightful option as well.

A winsome apologist with a Ph.D. in renaissance literature and a degree in theology, McLaughlin brings an academic’s understanding of history, context, and biblical commentary to bear on the core question of this book: How did the women named in the Bible describe their interactions with a Christ who was as countercultural then as he is today? And what would we have missed had these women not told others, ‘I have seen the Lord’? (John 20:18)

“To look at Jesus through the eyes of women may seem at first like an innately modern project,” McLaughlin admits in the book’s conclusion. But “what we see through their eyes is not an alternative Jesus, but rather the authentic Jesus, who welcomes both men and women as his disciples, and who is best seen from below.”

Though she leads into the subject with mention of the Gnostic Gospel of Mary (a text from the early church period rejected as heretical), acknowledging why it would resonate with some who view the Bible as dismissive of women—don’t worry. McLaughlin’s thesis is that the first-century Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John already reflect the eyewitness testimony of women who met Jesus and that “the Jesus we see through their eyes is more beautiful, more historically accurate, and more valuing of women than anything the Gospel of Mary can offer.”  

McLaughlin’s even-handed approach would make the book a viable suggestion even for a secular book club, and questions written by TGC’s Joanna Kimbrel at the end of each chapter make such discussions even easier. Have a few academics or self-declared feminists in the group? All the better. These are the types of readers McLaughlin seems eager to bring along, graciously refuting some of the false claims they may have heard about Christianity—that it is, at best, dismissive of the female experience and, at worst, harmful to women—while introducing them to the one who “valued women of all kinds—especially those vilified by others.”

But those who would avoid the book for fear it is tainted by feminist underpinnings would do well to pick it up, too. McLaughlin is faithful to the biblical text and to history while being keenly aware of our current cultural moment. Rather, this book lands in the good company of Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly and Paul E. Miller’s J-Curve through its meditation on Christ’s momentum toward the lowly and its call that we respond.

After building inroads for a variety of readers, McLaughlin gets into the nitty-gritty details of how women’s accounts added to the picture we see the Gospels paint of Jesus. Which stories in these books were likely included only because women witnessed and relayed them? It turns out, plenty. “If we cut the things that only women witnessed, we’d lose our first glimpse of Jesus as he took on human flesh and our first glimpse of his resurrected body,” McLaughlin writes. “The four Gospels preserve the eyewitness testimony of women.” 

The book delves into what these women witnessed by dividing the stories into six broad categories, from discipleship and nourishment, to healing and forgiveness. 

Zooming in 

Asking what Jesus looked like through their eyes helps us relate in fresh ways to familiar female characters like his mother, Mary. Just as the prophecy that new life is being birthed inside her seems unfathomable when it first arrives, the Christian can also wonder just how the promised newness of life in Christ is really at work in him or her. “Through Mary’s eyes, we see the life-upending blessing of receiving Jesus,” McLaughlin summarizes.

The book introduces us to lesser-known women of the Bible, too, like Joanna, the wife of Herod’s household manager and a likely source of inside information from the halls of power (Luke 9:1-3; 9:9). In his Gospel account, Luke would have named Joanna and other women who were with Jesus “in order to flag them as eyewitness sources” for some of the stories he includes, McLaughlin writes. McLaughlin also revisits biblical women we think we know, from Mary Magdalene to Lazarus’ sisters. 

Perhaps my favorite of these is the author’s take on the well-known story of Mary and Martha. When Jesus tells Martha, who is “distracted with much serving,” that her sister Mary “has chosen the good portion” by sitting at his feet, McLaughlin doesn’t see it as an indictment of the domestic anxieties that can plague women (how often have you heard a woman confess to “being a Martha”?). Rather, his words are a “validation of female discipleship,” of Mary’s and Martha’s access to Jesus as thinkers and students, not just servers. 

Through the eyes of these sisters, “we see [Jesus] as the one who welcomes women and defends their right to learn from him. We also see him as the one who gives us so much more than we could ever give to him.” 

It’s paradigm-shifting, then, to consider that this Martha is the one to whom Jesus later speaks some of his “most world-transforming” words: “I am the resurrection and the life.” McLaughlin points out that almost all of Jesus’ ‘I am’ statements are spoken to groups, but the two that are spoken to individuals are spoken to women. 

Besides John, women are largely the consistent witnesses of Jesus’ excruciating death, burial, and resurrection as well. In a chapter on life, McLaughlin focuses on these women’s accounts to winsomely argue for, not against, biblical soundness at several points, anticipating opposing views. She even quotes a resurrection skeptic and politely refutes his claims. 

She reminds us that, in that culture, the only reason to say that women witnessed all this is that they really did. 

Bringing Christ into focus

In her chapters on healing and forgiveness, McLaughlin acknowledges the messier stories, too. Jesus’ interaction with the bleeding woman, in particular, “shows he doesn’t shy away from femaleness.” This is often in sharp contrast to the responses of those around him. When this woman reaches for his cloak, “Jesus does not recoil.”

As he is with these women, he is also with us. “Jesus is no more put off by our inevitable uncleanness than a mother who has just given birth would be put off from holding her blood-smeared newborn. Before long, Jesus would bleed for this woman.”

Her chapter on the theme of forgiveness brings into focus Jesus’ infamous interactions with women of ill repute. These stories show a Jesus who “welcomed prostitutes: not like the other men of his day, and of ours, but like a loving brother, searching for his sister in the slums to bring her home.” Why does he welcome them? Not because of permissiveness, McLaughlin writes, but because of their repentance. 

Through the eyes of the sinful woman who crashes Simon the Pharisee’s dinner party (Luke 7:36-49), at last we see Jesus as “the one who defends” the woman wetting his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair. Rather than tearing this woman down along with his host, Jesus lifts her up “as a shining, tear-stained paragon of love to humble the self-righteous Pharisee.”

All this goes to show that those who throw themselves at Christ’s feet are the ones who will enter his kingdom. In this way, Jesus Through the Eyes of Women bridges the growing gap between how cultures—both the New Testament’s and our own—treat women who equally bear God’s image, and how the Jesus of the Bible did. We would do well to ingest, imitate, and marvel at the latter.

What is a woman? 
By / Jun 6

Editor’s Note: Among many of the most pressing ethical issues of our day is deep confusion over what it means to be human. From questions over abortion and racism to technology and sexuality, human anthropology lies at the heart of contemporary cultural debate. In light of the ongoing sexual crisis seen throughout our society, certain realities that once seemed common sense to most are being challenged in what is a failed quest to define our own existence and live independent of God’s created order.

As part of the ongoing research efforts at the ERLC, the following article, as well as the corresponding piece, “What is a man?”, offer a detailed look at these central questions in light of theological anthropology and philosophy. Each article is followed by a response from the corresponding scholar in hopes to further robust dialogue on these important questions of “what is a man” and “what is a woman” rooted in truths that cut to the heart of the important ethical questions being posed today.

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As many a man has discovered, most women don’t like being called “emotional.” The term is at once a dismissal and a putdown, an implication that she is melodramatic, irrational, or even unhinged. Ironically, men are equally as emotional as women; they just express their emotions differently. Despite cultural stereotypes, the presence or intensity of feeling does not exclusively belong to women. Nor does the presence or intensity of a feeling exclusively define women. A woman’s emotions are not the sum of her identity. She is more than her feelings. 

Every person is more than his or her feelings. Personal identity is not determined or proven by our emotions or perceptions. Yet, when we attempt to determine or prove gender identity, that is precisely the measure our culture employs. To be woman, today, is a feeling. 

And this feeling is an irrefutable proof, whether it corresponds to one’s biology, and whether it changes throughout one’s lifetime (or even one’s day).1Nancy Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2018), 203. Apart from one’s feeling, the medical community has no physiological, legal, medical, or physical criteria to verify a person’s gender identity.2Pearcey, Love Thy Body, 197. It is a self-reported, self-verified, and self-sustained identity. As Ryan T. Anderson describes in his work, When Harry Became Sally, the belief that a biological male can be “a woman stuck in a man’s body” presupposes that he knows what’s it’s like to be a woman, despite his male body, male brain, male reproductive capacities, and male DNA.3Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement (New York: Encounter Books, 2018),104. Even more, it also presupposes that he can separate his biological body from his gender identity. 

In other words, the physical self becomes irrelevant to determine a person’s true self. For someone with gender dysphoria, one’s sense of gender is misaligned with one’s biology. The body is a hindrance to authentic self-expression. The condition causes intense psychological distress, often causing gender dysphoric persons to seek relief through social, hormonal, and surgical changes. These changes can be anything as transient as clothing and hairstyles, or as irreparable as cross-sex hormones and organ-removing procedures. 

Recent data suggests gender confusion is affecting young women and girls at alarming and precipitous rates. Girls who identify as transgender have increased from 1/2,000 in 2008 to 1/20 in 2022.4“The Controversy Over Trans Teens,” The Week, October 24, 2021; accessed May 16, 2022; available from https://theweek.com/life/1006253/the-controversy-over-trans-teens. Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, Abigail Shrier notes the phenomenon of gender dysphoria among teenage girls runs deeper than sudden identity confusion: “For these girls, trans identification offers freedom from anxiety’s relentless pursuit; it satisfies the deepest need for acceptance, the thrill of transgression, the seductive lilt of belonging.”5Abigail Shrier, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (Washington D.C.: Regenery Publishing, 2020),xxx. 

An entire generation of women and girls is searching for an answer to the question: What is a woman? And in a secularized, hyper-individualistic culture like ours that elevates sexual and gender identity as our true selves, they have little more than feelings to guide them.6Carl R. Trueman, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2022), 74. For a more detailed and academic treatment of Trueman’s research, see The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020). As gender dysphoria spreads at alarming and precipitous rates, some suggest that Christian compassion would compel us to support someone’s gender transition, even if as a temporary measure to give therapeutic relief. 

The Bible and the body

In For the Body, Timothy Tennent claims the body is not just a biological category; it is also a theological category, one that reveals its Creator. “[T]he body makes the invisible mysteries of God’s nature and redemption manifest and visible as a tangible marker in the world.”7Timothy C. Tennent, For the Body (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2020), 14. Like all of God’s creation, the human body reflects design and purpose; every part has a function, every cell is complex. 

Scripture portrays the body as good and essential to our identity (Gen. 1:26-29). If it were not both good and essential, the Lord would not have assumed a physical body (Heb. 2:13), nor would he have resurrected bodily (1 Cor. 15:3; Rev. 22:20), nor would he fulfill the redemption of his saints with a new, physical body (John 6:40; 1 Cor. 15:52; Rom. 8:23).8Tennent, For the Body, 25. “Our created bodies all point to Christ’s incarnation, and in turn, his resurrected body points to our physical, bodily (not just spiritual) resurrection at the end of time….If our bodies are untrustworthy and only serve to mask the true self that is within, then the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity as Jesus of Nazareth cannot be trusted as a reliable means for God’s most profound self-disclosure in history.” Our bodies are not accidental or incidental to our identity as those who are created in God’s image.  

How does our biological sex relate to our gender identity? The Creation narrative gives us a clue. Genesis 1-2 tells, then re-tells, how God created humanity. Chapter 1 describes humanity in relationship to the rest of God’s creation. God made mankind—the culmination of his creative work—in his image (Gen. 1:26-29). It describes the first human beings as a male (zakar) and female (nequeba).9Tennent, For the Body, 19. Tennent also notes the entire Creation narrative is a series of binaries. “The entire creation account is set up around divinely instituted binaries. The dominant pairs or binaries in the account are ‘light and darkness’ (or ‘day and night’), ‘earth and sky,’ ‘water and land,’ ‘sun and moon,’ and ‘male and female.’” (19). This refers to the sexual difference between male and female. It also demonstrates that biological sex is binary.10This claim also considers the reality of intersex persons. Intersex refers to a biological state in which a person possesses both male and female reproductive organs at birth. The condition is the result of a chromosomal irregularity in utero. Estimations of the intersex population vary; one source claims it is as high as 1.7%, but a later study found a more precise definition of intersex conditions to be much lower. See Preston Sprinkle, Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say (David C. Cook, 2021), 117-120. As with all persons born with genetic irregularities, intersex persons deserve compassion and care. However, it is in error to conclude that congenital reproductive abnormalities disprove that sex is binary. See Deborah Soh, “Myth #1: Biological Sex is a Spectrum,” in The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths About Sex and Identity in Our Society (New York: Threshold Editions, 2020). Chapter 2 describes humanity in relationship to each other, what today we would call gender identity. Instead of finding male (zakar) and female (nequeba), we find man (ish) and woman (ishah).11“Researchers identify 6,500 genes that are expressed differently in men and woman,” Weizmann Institute of Science, March 5, 2017, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170504104342.htm. The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel reported over 6,500 genes that are expressed differently in men and women, many of which are entirely separate from sexual reproduction such as the skin and the left ventricle of the heart. The male and the female relate to one another as a man and a woman, respectively. 

Here we find God’s original intent for sex and gender. In both Genesis 1 and 2, the sets of terms correspond. If a human being is a male (zakar), then God created him a man (ish). If a human being is a female (nequeba), then God created her as woman (ishah). Our biological sex indicates and informs gender identity.

Prenatal development confirms this. The male and female are comprehensive and complex. At the cellular level, there are only two biological types of reproductive cells: male and female.“12Biological sex is either male or female. Contrary to what is commonly believed, sex is defined not by chromosomes or our genitals or hormonal profiles, but by gametes, which are mature reproductive cells. There are only two types of gametes: small ones called sperm that are produced by males, and large ones called eggs that are produced by females. There are no intermediate types of gametes between egg and sperm cells. Sex is therefore binary. It is not a spectrum.” (Soh, 16-17) The first evidence of sex differentiation occurs in utero, during the eighth week of gestation. At eight weeks, a male baby experiences a flood of testosterone, which shapes his brain development.13Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain New York: Harmony Books, 2007), 15. The absence of testosterone for a female baby shapes her brain development as well. The centers of her brain that control communication, observation, and processing of emotion are larger. Female infants are born hardwired for emotional connection. 

In a female baby’s first three months, she will increase in eye contact and “mutual facial gazing” by 400%.14Brizendine, The Female Brain, 37-38. As her brain develops,15Debra Soh, The End of Gender, Chapter 2 “Myth #2: Gender is a Social Construct.” Soh debunks research that undermines assertions of male/female brain differences (41). she will process facial features more quickly and have greater sensitivity to social experiences involving faces and emotions.”16Stephen A. Furlich, Sex Talk: How Biological Sex Influences Gender Communication Differences Throughout Life’s Stages (Chatham, NJ: Bowker, 2021), Kindle Location: 811. Her brain also has larger limbic systems, affecting language, relationships, and memory,17Furlich, Sex Talk, Kindle Location: 784. as well as bonding, nesting, and one’s connection to one’s emotions.18Richard Lippa, Gender, Nature, and Nurture, 2nd ed. (Mahway, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005), 100-102, cites many of these studies; Simon Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain (London: Penguin Books, 2003), devotes an entire book to the thesis: “The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male-brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems” (5). The corpus callosum is also larger in the female brain, which facilitates transfer of information between the left and right hemispheres. The two areas of the frontal and temporal lobes that are associated with language are significantly larger in women than in men. All of this occurs before she can be imprinted by gendered social norms.19Sex differences in brain anatomy,” National institute of Health July 28, 2020, accessed May 24, 2022; available from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sex-differences-brain-anatomy. “On average, males and females showed greater volume in different areas of the cortex, the outer brain layer that controls thinking and voluntary movements. Females had greater volume in the prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, superior temporal cortex, lateral parietal cortex, and insula. Males, on average, had greater volume in the ventral temporal and occipital regions. Each of these regions is responsible for processing different types of information.”

The brain and the body

These neurobiological differences guide gender behavior. Baby girls prefer to look at faces (i.e., people), while baby boys prefer to look at mechanical mobiles (i.e., motion). As young as 9 months old, boys and girls will gravitate toward gender-typical toys (girls to dolls and boys to cars, for example). As Dr. Debra Soh notes, this age is before children are old enough to recognize gender as a concept, which usually occurs between 18 and 24 months.20Soh, The End of Gender, 255 

Expressions of gender differences will vary from culture to culture; what is considered masculine or feminine in a given society or era will be different from another. But, whether a child gravitates toward, and identifies with, traits that are masculine or feminine within his or her own culture is “driven by biology.”21Soh, The End of Gender, 43. The biological differences in the brain lead to differences in behavior.22Soh, The End of Gender, 41. “Social markers for gender may change as decades go by, but this doesn’t mean children are socialized into having a gender….This doesn’t disprove that gender is biological, only that the expression of gender changes depending on what is considered male- and female-typical.” (Soh, 255) This doesn’t negate individuality or people whose interests aren’t gender-typical. And it doesn’t mean women have to conform to culturally contrived stereotypes.23Sprinkle, Embodied, 152. “Men aren’t commanded to be masculine, and women aren’t commanded to be feminine. They’re both just commanded to be godly.” Nancy Pearcey summarizes this well: “We must take care not to add to Scripture by baptizing gender expectations that are in reality historically contingent and arbitrary. . . . The church should be the first place where young people can find freedom from unbiblical stereotypes – the freedom to work out what it means to be created in God’s image as wholistic and redeemed people.”24Pearcey, Love Thy Body 218. These patterns do show, however, that God’s created our physical selves and our relational selves to be a unified whole.25Walker, God and the Transgender Debate, 54, cf. 50-51. Andrew Walker elaborates: “Maleness isn’t only anatomy but anatomy shows that there is maleness. And femaleness isn’t only anatomy, but anatomy shows that there is femaleness. Men and women are more than just their anatomy, but they are not less. Our anatomy tells us what gender we are.” So, we can plainly state:

A woman is a biologically female human being

But, what if the physical body and the inner sense of gender don’t align? Which one determines who we are? Preston Sprinkle gives guidance in his book, Embodied, when he says our biological sex “determines who we are . . . and our embodiment is an essential part of how we image God in the world.”26Sprinkle, Embodied, 152.  Our created, embodied selves tell us who we are. Who we are is not determined on how we feel. The pain of gender dysphoria is real. Longing for inner wholeness is real. But the promise of peace27Littman conducted a study to explain the phenomena of an increasing and sudden prevalence of gender dysphoria among adolescents, teenagers who had previously expressed no gender dysphoric symptoms. The condition, known as “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” (ROGD) revealed an unexpected – and culturally unwelcome – pattern. Littman found the influence of an adolescent’s relationships directly affected her gender identity. Among adolescents with ROGD, 87% had friends who announced themselves as gender dysphoric, had saturated themselves with material on niche websites discussing gender dysphoria, or both. In other words, a condition believed to find its source and validation in one’s intrinsic sense of self has extrinsic factors. Lisa Littman, “Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria,” PLOS ONE Vol 13, No. 8; August 16, 2018, accessed September 1, 2020; available from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330; internet. through hormone treatments and surgical procedures is an illusion.28Jennifer Smith, “Lesley Stahl Defends CBS 60 Minutes Episode About Transgender People Rushing into Treatment Then Regretting It: Young Man Was Castrated After Taking Female Hormones For Just THREE MONTHS,” DailyMail.com, May 26, 2021; accessed May 16, 2022; available from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9621959/Lesley-Stahl-defends-CBS-60-Minutes-episode-transgender-teens-rushed-it.html. Because the purpose for our sex and gender—the purpose for which we were made—will never be discovered from knowing ourselves, but in knowing the God who made us for himself.29This statement is not intended to dismiss the real and complex challenges of gender dysphoric persons. It is rather to offer hope that being reconciled to Christ is the way to inner peace.

A response to “What is a woman?” from Gregg R. Allison

At the outset, I express my thanks to Katie for tackling this important topic with me. I expect that she will agree that writing this essay was one of the more difficult tasks I have/she has ever undertaken! 

Among the many areas that I appreciate about Katie’s essay, I concentrate on four. First, she appropriately challenges the contemporary move that splits sex from gender. As she highlights, this shift overlooks or dismisses biological facts and elevates personal feelings or imagination, possibly leading to the claim that an XY individual is a woman or an XX individual is a man. Katie has assessed the current situation well: gender “is a self-reported, self-verified, and self-sustained identity,” and it carries the day. 

Second, from her vantage point of being a woman, Katie rightly defies a transgender woman’s assertion that he knows what it means to be a woman. I concur. No man can possibly know what it is to be a woman because he cannot experience typical female lived experiences such as estrogen-onset puberty, menstruation, the miracle of pregnancy, the bonding between mother and nursing child, pervasive domination by men, mistreatment and being demeaned by men, the fellowship of sisterhood, and more. 

Third, Katie compassionately laments the nightmarish experience of gender incongruence, which is increasing at an alarming rate. As she underscores, “the pain of gender dysphoria is real,” and her intent in discussing it is not “to dismiss the real and complex challenges of gender dysphoric persons.” 

Fourth, Katie strongly affirms the goodness of human embodiment and its essential role in human identity. This is a much-needed corrective to the Gnostic and neo-Gnostic deviations that are rearing their ugly heads in some contemporary societies. I wonder if she would affirm, as I do, “I am my body.”

This leads to my next section.  

Of the many questions I have, I offer two broad areas for further exploration. First, I would like to see more discussion of Katie’s point—interacting with Debra Soh—that masculine and feminine traits within different cultures are “driven by biology.”30Soh, The End of Gender, 41. How does this affirmation escape the error of biological essentialism or determinism? On the “nature vs. nurture” spectrum, Katie leans toward the “nature” side, as she explains that “biological differences in the brain lead to differences in behavior.” From my perspective, the “nurture” side often gets minimized in these discussions, and I would like to hear more from her on this point. 

Second, I would appreciate Katie expanding on her minimal definition—“a woman is a biologically female human being”—and address how a woman expresses her female biology beyond, for example, facial gazing, language, memory, and transfer of information from right and left brain hemispheres. I would like to hear her discuss how a woman expresses emotions, bonding, nesting, and relationships, specifically, (1) how cultural/contextual factors incise themselves into this biological substratum, thereby affecting its expression, and (2) how these female expressions (for example, of bonding) are not completely unique to a woman yet differ from those of a man. This topic is fascinating, difficult, and often frustrating, and I’d enjoy hearing more of her thoughts.  

Read “What is a man?” by Gregg R. Allison

  • 1
    Nancy Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2018), 203.
  • 2
    Pearcey, Love Thy Body, 197.
  • 3
    Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement (New York: Encounter Books, 2018),104.
  • 4
    “The Controversy Over Trans Teens,” The Week, October 24, 2021; accessed May 16, 2022; available from https://theweek.com/life/1006253/the-controversy-over-trans-teens.
  • 5
    Abigail Shrier, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (Washington D.C.: Regenery Publishing, 2020),xxx.
  • 6
    Carl R. Trueman, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2022), 74. For a more detailed and academic treatment of Trueman’s research, see The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020).
  • 7
    Timothy C. Tennent, For the Body (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2020), 14.
  • 8
    Tennent, For the Body, 25. “Our created bodies all point to Christ’s incarnation, and in turn, his resurrected body points to our physical, bodily (not just spiritual) resurrection at the end of time….If our bodies are untrustworthy and only serve to mask the true self that is within, then the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity as Jesus of Nazareth cannot be trusted as a reliable means for God’s most profound self-disclosure in history.”
  • 9
    Tennent, For the Body, 19. Tennent also notes the entire Creation narrative is a series of binaries. “The entire creation account is set up around divinely instituted binaries. The dominant pairs or binaries in the account are ‘light and darkness’ (or ‘day and night’), ‘earth and sky,’ ‘water and land,’ ‘sun and moon,’ and ‘male and female.’” (19).
  • 10
    This claim also considers the reality of intersex persons. Intersex refers to a biological state in which a person possesses both male and female reproductive organs at birth. The condition is the result of a chromosomal irregularity in utero. Estimations of the intersex population vary; one source claims it is as high as 1.7%, but a later study found a more precise definition of intersex conditions to be much lower. See Preston Sprinkle, Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say (David C. Cook, 2021), 117-120. As with all persons born with genetic irregularities, intersex persons deserve compassion and care. However, it is in error to conclude that congenital reproductive abnormalities disprove that sex is binary. See Deborah Soh, “Myth #1: Biological Sex is a Spectrum,” in The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths About Sex and Identity in Our Society (New York: Threshold Editions, 2020).
  • 11
    “Researchers identify 6,500 genes that are expressed differently in men and woman,” Weizmann Institute of Science, March 5, 2017, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170504104342.htm. The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel reported over 6,500 genes that are expressed differently in men and women, many of which are entirely separate from sexual reproduction such as the skin and the left ventricle of the heart.
  • 12
    Biological sex is either male or female. Contrary to what is commonly believed, sex is defined not by chromosomes or our genitals or hormonal profiles, but by gametes, which are mature reproductive cells. There are only two types of gametes: small ones called sperm that are produced by males, and large ones called eggs that are produced by females. There are no intermediate types of gametes between egg and sperm cells. Sex is therefore binary. It is not a spectrum.” (Soh, 16-17)
  • 13
    Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain New York: Harmony Books, 2007), 15.
  • 14
    Brizendine, The Female Brain, 37-38.
  • 15
    Debra Soh, The End of Gender, Chapter 2 “Myth #2: Gender is a Social Construct.” Soh debunks research that undermines assertions of male/female brain differences (41).
  • 16
    Stephen A. Furlich, Sex Talk: How Biological Sex Influences Gender Communication Differences Throughout Life’s Stages (Chatham, NJ: Bowker, 2021), Kindle Location: 811.
  • 17
    Furlich, Sex Talk, Kindle Location: 784.
  • 18
    Richard Lippa, Gender, Nature, and Nurture, 2nd ed. (Mahway, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005), 100-102, cites many of these studies; Simon Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain (London: Penguin Books, 2003), devotes an entire book to the thesis: “The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male-brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems” (5).
  • 19
    Sex differences in brain anatomy,” National institute of Health July 28, 2020, accessed May 24, 2022; available from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sex-differences-brain-anatomy. “On average, males and females showed greater volume in different areas of the cortex, the outer brain layer that controls thinking and voluntary movements. Females had greater volume in the prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, superior temporal cortex, lateral parietal cortex, and insula. Males, on average, had greater volume in the ventral temporal and occipital regions. Each of these regions is responsible for processing different types of information.”
  • 20
    Soh, The End of Gender, 255
  • 21
    Soh, The End of Gender, 43.
  • 22
    Soh, The End of Gender, 41. “Social markers for gender may change as decades go by, but this doesn’t mean children are socialized into having a gender….This doesn’t disprove that gender is biological, only that the expression of gender changes depending on what is considered male- and female-typical.” (Soh, 255)
  • 23
    Sprinkle, Embodied, 152. “Men aren’t commanded to be masculine, and women aren’t commanded to be feminine. They’re both just commanded to be godly.”
  • 24
    Pearcey, Love Thy Body 218.
  • 25
    Walker, God and the Transgender Debate, 54, cf. 50-51. Andrew Walker elaborates: “Maleness isn’t only anatomy but anatomy shows that there is maleness. And femaleness isn’t only anatomy, but anatomy shows that there is femaleness. Men and women are more than just their anatomy, but they are not less. Our anatomy tells us what gender we are.”
  • 26
    Sprinkle, Embodied, 152. 
  • 27
    Littman conducted a study to explain the phenomena of an increasing and sudden prevalence of gender dysphoria among adolescents, teenagers who had previously expressed no gender dysphoric symptoms. The condition, known as “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” (ROGD) revealed an unexpected – and culturally unwelcome – pattern. Littman found the influence of an adolescent’s relationships directly affected her gender identity. Among adolescents with ROGD, 87% had friends who announced themselves as gender dysphoric, had saturated themselves with material on niche websites discussing gender dysphoria, or both. In other words, a condition believed to find its source and validation in one’s intrinsic sense of self has extrinsic factors. Lisa Littman, “Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria,” PLOS ONE Vol 13, No. 8; August 16, 2018, accessed September 1, 2020; available from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330; internet.
  • 28
    Jennifer Smith, “Lesley Stahl Defends CBS 60 Minutes Episode About Transgender People Rushing into Treatment Then Regretting It: Young Man Was Castrated After Taking Female Hormones For Just THREE MONTHS,” DailyMail.com, May 26, 2021; accessed May 16, 2022; available from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9621959/Lesley-Stahl-defends-CBS-60-Minutes-episode-transgender-teens-rushed-it.html.
  • 29
    This statement is not intended to dismiss the real and complex challenges of gender dysphoric persons. It is rather to offer hope that being reconciled to Christ is the way to inner peace.
  • 30
    Soh, The End of Gender, 41.

3 influential women of the civil rights movement
By / Feb 24

Many who think of the civil rights movement often picture it through the lens of its great male leaders. Martin Luther King Jr sharing powerfully about his dream for America. John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) giving a speech before the March on Washington. Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) marching on the front lines at Selma. 

However, these men were not the only figures who led during the movement. Women worked and marched and bled alongside the men during the freedom struggles, even if they were not as prominent in media appearances. As Andrew Young, who worked closely with MLK as part of the SCLC has said, “There could not have been a civil rights movement without the sacrifice, the vision, the support and the hard work of the thousands of women.” Below are just three of the women who were crucial to the work of the freedom struggle. 

Septima Poinsette Clark (1898–1987)

Septima Poinsette Clark was described as the “mother of the movement” or the “queen mother” of civil rights because of her long activity in the struggle for freedom. Born in 1898 in Charleston, South Carolina, to a former slave and his wife, she would go on to become a teacher in the state at a Black school on Johns Island. She was active in the work of the NAACP, even participating in a lawsuit that gave equal pay to Black and white teachers in South Carolina. However, she was fired from her job in 1956 when the state passed a law forbidding state employees from belonging to civil rights organizations. 

Rather than forego her civil rights work, she left her position as an educator. She went on to focus her time more on the activism that she had begun earlier. She was already working with the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee which was focused on training activists and leaders in the civil rights movement (Rosa Parks was one of the trainees just a few months before her refusal to give up her seat in Montgomery). Clark led the institute in providing literacy training, citizenship information, and helping African Americans complete voter registration forms. She would go on to work with the SCLC in their Citizenship Education Program performing similar work to what she had done at Highlander. 

She was eventually recognized by President Jimmy Carter for her work in civil rights. Furthermore, in 1976, the state of South Carolina admitted that she had been unjustly fired and reinstated her teacher’s pension. She stands out because her work began long before people traditionally think of the civil rights era, but was crucial for the legislative and judicial victories that would occur during the 50s and 60s.  

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977)

The work of the civil rights movement would not have occurred without the activity of local, grassroots organizers. Mississippian Fannie Lou Hamer serves as a powerful example of the ways that Black women were crucial in mobilizing people in support of the movement. Born to poor sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta in 1917, she would leave school at age 12 to pick cotton with her family. In 1944, she would marry her husband Perry Hamer, and the couple began working for B.D. Marlowe as sharecroppers on his plantation. In 1961, she attended a meeting of SNCC and SCLC were she began her role as a SNCC organizer. 

The next year, she and a group attempted to register to vote in Indianola but were denied because of a literacy test. As they were leaving, they were harassed and fined $100 by the police because the bus they were on was “too yellow.” Hamer was also fired by Marlow (though her husband was required to stay on and complete the contract), and after the season was complete he confiscated much of their property, necessitating their move to Ruleville, Mississippi, where she became a leader in organizing individuals to vote. She would be arrested and jailed in Winona in 1963 because she sat at a “whites-only” bus station restaurant. During her night in jail, she was beaten, leading to lifelong injuries. 

Hammer was also a founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) which protested the work of the local Democratic Party’s exclusion of African Americans. At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, the MFDP asked to be recognized as the official delegation rather than the all-white delegation sent by the Mississippi Democratic party. Though national leadership attempted to deny her press coverage, her impassioned speech, with its descriptions of injustice in the South, was televised. She was also instrumental in the organization of Freedom Summer which brought college students to the South to help register African Americans to vote. At the grassroots level, Hamer is representative of the thousands of women who organized in their communities, worked tirelessly, and mobilized others in the fight for equal rights and justice. 

Diane Nash (1938– )

Diane Nash is representative of the many college students who were crucial to the ativism that led to the end of the Jim Crow system. Though she initially started college at Howard University in Washington, D.C., she transferred to Fisk University in Nashville after a year. As a native of Chicago, it was in Nashville that she experienced the full weight of Jim Crow and its effect on African Americans. She began attending nonviolence workshops led by James Lawson, and though initially skeptical, she came to agree with their effectiveness. 

Nash was one of the leaders of the students who participated in department store sit-ins in Nashville to protest segregation because she ably presented herself to the press and police. She was especially noted for her refusal, when arrested, to post bail. In one instance, she along with her fellow detainees, told the judge that to pay bail would be “contributing to and supporting the injustice and immoral practices that have been performed in the arrest and conviction” of the protestors. Nash and her fellow students were not going to let the state profit off their protest or validate the actions of the state in unjustly arresting them. 

Nash played a role in the founding of SNCC, eventually assuming the role of leading their direct action campaigns. She also helped to continue the Freedom Rides of 1961 through coordination and support. She would eventually be arrested in Mississippi on the charge of contributing to delinquency of minors because of her role in teaching them nonviolence. Though pregnant, she opted to serve her sentence rather than post bail, continuing her long-standing principle of “jail without bail.” The judge chose to suspend her sentence rather than face the negative publicity likely to arise from sending a pregnant woman to jail. Nash, and the many college students like her, were often on the front lines of direct action and leaders in the nonviolent movement. Her activity in coordinating and organizing that activity was crucial to the work of freedom.

Clark, Hamer, and Nash deserve to be lauded and remembered for their tireless efforts in the civil rights movement. Each of these women — along with those whose names we might never know — contributed to the long-overdue recognition of every human being’s right to be treated equally and with dignity. May we all have such a heart for our fellow man and for the pursuit of justice. 

Image caption: The House of Representatives met today to affirm seating of its Mississippi members, as Civil Rights demonstrators massed in silent support of their claim that the State’s elections were illegal because blacks were barred from the polls. They are, left to right: Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine.

Why Southern Baptists should value the WMU
By / Feb 17

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Woman’s Missionary Union began 133 years ago in the hearts of visionary leaders to pray and systematically raise money for missions. The WMU’s focus is to make disciples of Jesus who live on mission and has enabled women to share the good news of Jesus and serve others in his name. Sandy Wisdom-Martin, executive director/treasurer, talks below about how the organization has evolved over the years, making it one of the most diverse boards in SBC life. In addition, several other WMU state leaders discuss the influence WMU has had on their lives. 

Elizabeth Bristow: Can you explain to our audience who the WMU is and what your organization exists to do? 

Sandy Wisdom-Martin: Woman’s Missionary Union is an auxiliary — or helper — to the Southern Baptist Convention. WMU offers missions discipleship for all ages, from preschoolers to adults, leadership development opportunities, and compassion ministries such as WorldCrafts and Christian Women’s and Men’s Job Corps. Everything we do is for one purpose — to make disciples of Jesus who live on mission.

EB: In your presentation at the Executive Committee meeting, you mentioned that the WMU is one of the most diverse boards in SBC life. How has the diversity of your board played a role in your mission and in the flourishing of your organization? 

SWM: It is such a blessing to have an ethnically diverse board, as representation from various countries and cultures enriches our experiences and keeps us mindful of God’s love for all peoples of all nations. We are also grateful our current board represents several generations; collectively, their valuable input helps us to effectively advance our mission’s focus without perpetuating a generational divide. This diversity reflects that missions involvement in WMU is for everyone, and as emerging leaders seek opportunities to serve, they are able to “see” a place of service for themselves in WMU.

EB: Tell me more about your board and how these women came to join your mission in making disciples of Jesus who live on mission. 

SWM: WMU is very much a grassroots movement. Unlike SBC agencies that have appointed trustees or board members, WMU’s executive board is comprised of women who serve as WMU president in their state or multistate territory. Each state WMU president is a woman from the church with a passion for missions who has been elected by the WMU members in her state to represent them. This model provides for geographic diversity, since they collectively represent the entire U.S., and ensures executive board members are actively serving in WMU and are highly invested in missions.

EB: What message would you send to a female leader who is desiring to serve her local church? 

SWM: I would encourage her to prayerfully consider where God is calling her to serve and follow in obedience. God has gifted and equipped each person to carry out the work of his kingdom. In every role in life, there are elements of leadership. We should be on a lifelong quest and always lean into learning, growing, and developing as leaders.

EB: Why is serving with WMU important to you? 

Angela Jones, president, Alaska WMU: Serving with WMU is important to me because it gives me purpose, direction, and meaning. I believe in the mission and the ministry of WMU. I appreciate the opportunity to serve in my home, church, and community and know that I am adding value. They provide all the tools needed to be a successful leader as I serve others. WMU helps reveal the potential of the individual, helping the entire family grow into a better person. I enjoy learning from others and working in sync with other women by praying, giving of myself, and giving to the cause. Missionaries are called and sent out with prayers, funds, and opportunity to spread the Word of God and to give hope and insight to others around the world.

Melody Knox, executive director, Maryland/Delaware WMU: I believe that serving with WMU keeps me in contact with how to pray and support missionaries on the field. I am also able to share this information with the churches to encourage them to make missions a part of their everyday life. I feel like I am a bigger part of the work that God is doing through missions/missionaries.

EB: How have you grown as a leader through WMU?  

AJ: I have grown through WMU by hearing the Word of God and by sharing with others the things I have learned. I have been afforded the opportunity to teach different age-level groups from Mission Friends to adult women. I have witnessed the work and cohesiveness of women from all over. Again, tools are provided to encourage and equip us to lead. I have been taught and mentored to be the leader that I am today and will be in the future. I, too, will pay it forward.

MK: I have learned that missionaries depend on the leadership that is extended to them through WMU. It warms my heart to know how much they appreciate the WMU ladies who sincerely care about them and their families on an everyday basis. My love for missions and missionaries has grown immensely through my leadership in WMU in my convention.

EB: Why should women be involved in WMU?  

AJ: WMU offers something for the entire family, which will help women help their loved ones grow in Christ. It offers opportunities for women to have a meaning and purpose and [teaches them] how to take on the challenges of everyday living. It helps women love the Lord, themselves, their family members, and those who have lost all hope. I know of no other organization that has [such] a diverse group of women from all cultures, colors, and races that can come together in one accord but offering different gifts and talents. 

When we come together, we leave a better woman because we pour into each other and bonds are being made. We pray together and share with one another, and we support and encourage each other. We are women on a mission united together to change the world with the help of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

MK: Women need to know the blessing that comes through supporting and praying for those who have gone to the nations. They really need to be aware of how their money is spent through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. I did not realize until I became involved with WMU how much our donation as a family helps those who are called to go.

ERLC does not support requiring women to register with Selective Service
By / Oct 20

The National Commission of Military, National, and Public Service recently released their two-year review with the recommendation that all Americans, regardless of gender, may be expected to serve in the event of a national draft.

Southern Baptists affirm that men and women were created with distinct physical and psychological differences. Women placed in combat would be a risk to themselves, to the men around them, and consequently, to our nation.  Men are psychologically prepared to protect, while women desire to nurture. Asking a woman to take the place of a man in protecting a nation is not only dangerous, but dishonors the role of men and women.   

Men and women are equal in value but distinct in their roles. Genesis 1:27 notes that God created men and women in His image; they are equal in value, but they were also created with specific and complementary characteristics for different roles. Furthermore, 2019 SBC Resolution on Expanding The Selective Service To Include Women notes that government coercion of women signing up for the draft “would be to treat men and women interchangeably and to deny male and female differences clearly revealed in Scripture and in nature.”

The U.S. draft has historically been filled by men. In March of 2020, The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service published a review on the status of military and public service of young Americans, complete with policy recommendations including an updated military selective service process. The newly recommended draft would require women to sign up for the draft. If the commission’s suggested policies were implemented, women between the ages of 18 and 26 would be compelled to register for the national draft. Should there be a national emergency requiring a more robust military, both men and women would be drawn by a lottery system and forced to serve. No distinctions between the roles of men and women’s potential placements were made. There is also no recognition that women are often the nurturing parent needed at home; intact families are necessary for a healthy society. 

Southern Baptists wish to express deepest gratitude to those courageous men and women who have served, as noted in the 2016 SBC resolution on Women Registering for the Draft. We are grateful for all women who have chosen to serve their country in the military, but make the distinction that forced service is both dishonorable and unbiblical. 

A prayer guide for the people of Afghanistan
By / Aug 19

The startling images of men, women, and children forcing their way onto a military plane in Kabul, Afghanistan, stand in contrast to the images of my daily life strewn before me. My children’s toys are scattered across the floor. Backpacks and digital devices hang ready for school, and half-eaten breakfasts fill the sink. In the midst of my undeserved blessings and comfort, I don’t want to forget the people of Afghanistan, made in the image of God, who are facing unimaginable suffering. 

The tragedy of what has transpired in Afghanistan has gripped the hearts of many Americans like me. As we read the headlines and watch the videos of the Taliban takeover, those of us who feel so far way are not powerless despite how it may seem. As those who trust in Christ, we can support the Afghan people in prayer by calling upon our Lord and his vast power. 

When we face a daunting and complex situation, praying the scriptures is a great guide for us — and it transforms our minds in the process. (Rom. 12:2) Paul instructs us to pray “at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). Below are a few prompts to help you pray for the Afghan church and people throughout the day. 

Pray against the darkness

Any prayer offered to God is an engagement in spiritual battle. 

  • Pray against the cosmic powers of darkness to be pushed back. Ephesians 6 says: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.” 
  • Pray against the schemes of the devil in Afghanistan and around the world (2 Cor. 2:10-11; Eph. 6:11). 
  • Pray that evil acts done in secret would come to the light. (Eph. 5:13)

Pray for those who remain

Even before the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the nation was facing a hunger crisis. In July, the international charity Oxfam reported that 42 percent of the population were in “crisis-level hunger or worse.” It is now reported that the Taliban is going house to house to exert control, and many are in danger.

  • Pray for God’s provision for the physical needs for food, shelter, and water for the Afghan people (Matt. 6:11).
  • Pray for supernatural protection for those in Afghanistan facing oppression and difficulty. Pray that they would experience Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, and the flame will not burn you.”  
  • Pray for the safety and provision of U.S. and Afghan military forces who remain in the country.
  • Pray for the missionaries and non-governmental organizations who have remained to continue on in their work amidst the humanitarian crisis.

Pray for those who have left

It must be a jarring and traumatic experience to be forced to flee from your country and the only home you’ve ever known. Not only that, many of those who have left Afghanistan don’t know where they will go. 

  • Pray for the international community to aid refugees who have fled or are currently fleeing persecution in Afghanistan. 
  • Pray for Afghan people living in different parts of the world as they watch and grieve for their country (Psa. 34:18).
  • The ERLC has advocated for special refugee status for those feeling the country (Exodus 23:9; Lev. 19:33). Pray for government leaders in the U.S. to have compassion, wisdom, and courage as they make decisions that will affect many lives (1 Tim. 2:2). 

Pray for the women of Afghanistan

It is widely reported that life under Taliban rule is highly restricted, and often dangerous, for women — even young women who are more rightly identified as children. Many women who have lived with two decades of freedom are waiting to see what life will be like for them in these circumstances. 

  • Pray that they would know they are created in the image of God and highly valuable. (Gen. 1:26-27)
  • Pray for those who will affirm and advocate for the dignity of women and demonstrate Proverbs 31: “open our mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open our mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
  • Pray for basic freedoms for women, such as education, to remain intact. 
  • Pray for the protection of the vulnerable from those who would prey on and abuse them (James 1:27).

Pray for the Afghan church

Afghanistan has long been a place of risk for Christians. According to Open Doors USA’s annual World Watch List, the second most dangerous place to be a Christian in the world is Afghanistan, only very slightly less oppressive than in North Korea.

Mindy Belz, senior editor at World magazine, who has traveled and written extensively about the Christian church in the Middle East, reported: “One leader of a house church network (with more than 500 members) received on Aug. 12 a letter signed by Taliban militants threatening him and his family. ‘We know where you are and what you are doing,’ it read.”

  • Pray for the church to be “strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that [they] may have great endurance and patience” (Col. 1:11).
  • Pray that the Lord would direct their hearts to God’s love and Christ’s endurance (2 Thess. 2:5).
  • Pray for the gospel witness of the Afghan church. Pray that Muslims, and others, would “call upon the name of the Lord” in this time of duress (Psa. 50).  

Pray for hope

The terrible situation in Afghanistan looks bleak, but as Christians, we know it is not without hope. Ours is the God of redemption and has a long history of bringing beauty from the ashes. 

  • Pray for Christians in Afghanistan and beyond to remain hopeful in the Lord and his purposes. 
  • Pray that those facing difficulty would experience peace despite their circumstances, as Elizabeth Elliot writes in Suffering is Never for Nothing, “We’re not adrift in chaos. We’re held in the everlasting arms” (Psalm 13).
  • Pray that these sufferings will lead to hope anchored in God’s love, as is promised in ​​Romans 5:3-5: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” 
  • Pray that God will grant believers joy in the midst of trouble and would enable unbelievers to receive the message of the gospel (1 Thess. 1:6).  Pray that they would soon experience Psalm 90:15: “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us.”

Pray for the Taliban

Jesus told his followers, “But I tell you who hear Me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28). Even though our daily lives aren’t immediately threated by the Taliban, we must identify ourselves with our brothers and sisters in Christ and exemplify Christ’s heart in our prayers.

  • Praise God that “anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). And pray that the members of the Taliban will call upon Christ. 
  • Pray that they will experience “the fragrance of Christ” from the Christian church and be led to life (2 Cor. 2:13-14).
  • Pray that their plans would be thwarted and that they would be unable to hurt others. 
  • And pray that those who make up the Taliban will repent of their sin and turn to Christ and his forgiveness (1 John 1:9).

Why objective truth is the issue at hand in the transgender debate
By / Aug 10

Every four years, the summer Olympic Games take center stage. And while impossible-to-believe feats of strength and athleticism, camaraderie, and sportsmanship regularly wow its global viewership, the Olympic platform has sometimes also thrust prevailing social and cultural issues to the foreground. In some ways, the Tokyo Olympics may have done so more than ever.

As a prime example, one of the cultural issues that took center stage this summer was the transgender debate, seen most notably in the participation of Laurel Hubbard, a 43-year-old weightlifter from New Zealand who competed in the women’s heavyweight competition. Though admittedly reluctant to be a mouthpiece for the transgender community, Hubbard, who formerly competed in the sport as a male, has garnered a great deal of attention and sparked significant controversy by participating in Tokyo’s games.

Much of the conversation on this particular controversy revolves around the question of fairness. Namely, is it fair for a person who has undergone a so-called gender transition, especially from male to female, to compete athletically in their “new” gender classification? But while the issue of fairness is critically important in sports and athletics, the truth is that fairness is downstream from the real crux of the issue. At root, the issue at hand is whether we, as a society, will continue to recognize and accept objective truth. 

A web of delusion

We are suffering from a self-deception of our own making. The widespread acceptance of transgenderism reflects the fact that our culture has traded objective truth for subjectivism. In effect, we have crowned the self the ruler of truth. And in the midst of this, Sir Walter Scott’s memorable line, “Oh what a tangled web we weave,” has become uncomfortably poignant. Our culture has woven a destructive web of delusion, allowing feelings to supplant facts and preferences to replace realities.

Human beings do not decree what is or is not true. We are not God or gods. As limited and finite beings, our duty is much more modest. We recognize truth. We share truth. We stand for truth. But we do not fashion or alter what is true. And in our culture today, perhaps our hubris and propensity for exceeding the boundaries of our own authority is nowhere better displayed than with regard to gender. 

Rejecting reality

In the case of Laurel Hubbard, we are witnessing the downstream consequences of our culture’s rejection of objective truth. Hubbard’s example demonstrates just how quickly we’re beginning to encounter the consequences of decades of emphasis on self-supremacy and self-actualization. 

Any rational person can acknowledge that it is generally unfair to ask biological females to compete against biological males in physical athletic competition. This is especially true when the activity is weightlifting. The reasons why are self-evident but bear repeating. Males and females are distinct. Among other things, males and females have different musculoskeletal makeups: “Muscle size and bulk is less in women, due to the effects of the normal sex hormones. Men, given their greater levels of testosterone, have larger and stronger muscles, with a greater potential for muscle development.” Importantly, these physiological distinctions are not able to be altered apart from serious medical intervention — and even then clear differences persist.

The decision to allow Hubbard to compete against biological females because of Hubbard’s current female “gender identity” reflects just how deeply we’ve imbibed this cultural delusion. There is no doubt that Hubbard, and many others, experience true feelings of gender dysphoria, “a condition where a person senses that their gender identity (how they feel about being male or female) may not align with their biological sex and experiences emotional distress as a result.” Indeed, such people deserve tremendous mercy and compassion. But validating an identity that is not merely flawed but antithetical to Hubbard’s true identity is neither merciful nor compassionate. It is a rejection of reality and a repudiation of the concept of objective truth.

Eroding the foundations

When it comes to sex and gender the answer is not to capitulate to the winds of culture. Instead, it is to affirm that which is apparent by observation, attested via biology, and most importantly revealed in Scripture. It is no accident that the first pages of our Bible clearly describe God’s pattern for human beings in the words “male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). And it is equally important for Christians to affirm that gender is inextricably linked to sex. Regardless of whether a person may “feel” like a man or a woman, their gender is not determined according to feeling but according to a fixed and objective reality. Only males are men; only females are women.

Athletic competition reveals these distinctions acutely. Men and women typically compete in separate categories to ensure a fair and equal playing field. One need not subscribe to the Bible’s view of anthropology to recognize this. We can recognize the injustice of allowing biological males to compete against biological females because alongside our innate sense of fairness is our perception of these biological distinctions. 

Beyond sports, we can only guess just how damaging the eradication of these boundaries will be for both individuals and our society as a whole. What we do know is that this widespread rejection of objective truth will continue to erode the foundations upon which our common life is built. As Christians, we must strive resist the tides of culture and hold fast to the truth about what it means that God creates human beings as either male or female. These distinctions are critical, not merely to preserve the wonder that captivates us at the Olympic Games but to honor the pattern of God’s design for those he created to reflect his image back into all creation.