Postmillennial Worldview

PMW 2018-098 by Colin Smothers (Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood)

Gentry note: The church is in need of revival. We are witnessing even evangelical bodies in a state of decline. Now even one of the largest and most esteemed evangelical agencies has allowed fallen culture to be represented in its annual meeting. Postmillennialism expects true revival and culture-wide reformation. Both are needed today. And they will come. But they will come only if we are alert to what is happening around us. Smothers’ article is a good warning call. Let us pray that the ETS heeds his call. I am presenting this article on December 7, as we are witnessing an attack on our culture.

When I opened the program guide for this year’s meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Denver, I was surprised by a paper titled “Walking across Gender in the Spirit? The Vocation of the Church and the Transgender Christian.” My interest piqued, I made plans to attend the session to hear the presentation. I honestly thought going into it that the title was intended for shock value to garner interest in order to set up an evangelical rebuttal of transgenderism. But what I heard from that paper went beyond anything I had thought possible at the Evangelical Theological Society.

The paper argues for the legitimacy of transgender identities. It appeared in an “Evangelicals and Gender” section, which means that the paper was vetted by committee members before being accepted into the program. Every member of the steering committee except one is a contributor to an evangelical feminist group called Christians for Biblical Equality. This raises the question: does CBE now accept the legitimacy of transgender identities? In addition to this session, there is at least one article that suggests it might. Continue reading →