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Archives For November 30, 1999

The Briefing: ESPN edits out Schilling, companies oppose religious freedom bills

ib2newseditor —  May 3, 2016

The BriefingESPN edits Schilling out of sports history
ESPN edited out footage from Curt Schilling’s legendary “bloody sock” game when replaying a 2010 documentary about the Boston Red Sox’s 2004 World Series comeback win. The move to cut him out of the documentary happened less than two weeks after the network fired him for objecting to laws allowing men who identify as transgender to use a women’s restroom.

Companies oppose religious freedom bills
Almost 200 bills have been proposed this year in more than 30 states that would limit or prohibit protection against discrimination for LGBT individuals, according to the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC). In response, large companies that have already contributed millions of dollars to HRC and other advocacy groups have been taking steps to coordinate their lobbying activities.

1 million Americans boycott Target
More than one million people have decided they will no longer buy their Nutter Butters or Wet Wipes at Target. The American Family Association launched a boycott of the nation’s second largest retailer over a week ago – over Target’s corporate policy allowing men who identify as women to use the bathrooms and fitting rooms of their choosing.

Student expelled for views on homosexuality
Former Missouri State University student Andrew Cash is suing the college for expelling him from the school’s counseling program based on his opposition to same-sex relationships. Cash, who began his master’s in counseling in 2007, was expelled from the program in 2014 for expressing his views on counseling homosexual couples on relationship issues.

Religious freedom deteriorating around the world
Religious freedom remains under “serious and sustained assault” around the globe, according to a new annual report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “At best, in most of the countries we cover, religious freedom has not gotten better,” commission chairman Robert P. George said May 2. “In the worst cases, it has spiraled further downwards.”

Sources: The Federalist, Bloomberg, Fox News, Baptist Press, Religion News

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Gender fluidity: Growing confusion over sexual identity

Lisa Misner —  December 30, 2015
Editor’s note: After an often tearful year, the Christian’s counterattack is hope.  The enemy may use the events of last year to strike chords of fear, but in reporting them, we offer notes of hope for 2016. God is in control of this world, and whatever happens, this history being made before our eyes will turn people toward him. He is our hope.
This is our certainty as we anticipate the new year, our hope.

Gender-squareBy Lisa Sergent | The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June declaring same-sex marriage to be a constitutional right in all 50 states seemed to open a floodgate.

Olympic hero Bruce Jenner was named Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine after he reimagined himself as “Caitlyn.” Then, almost immediately, transgender issues multiplied, even reaching Illinois.

Consider what happened when Township High School District 211 tried to fight the federal government. A transgender boy wanted to use the girls’ locker room at Palatine High School. He was denied access by school officials. The student, who is still anatomically male, took the demand to the Department of Education. After several meetings, the suburban Chicago school board acquiesced to the demands and submitted to monitoring by the OCR through 2017.

Andrew Walker of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission wrote, “By taking the action it has, the federal government is endorsing a worldview of expressive individualism—a worldview that shuns limits, endorses controversial gender ideology, and opens up society to ever-evolving standards of sexual morality.”

So far, only Texans are successfully standing against the transgender advance. After a citywide “rights ordinance” was defeated 62% to 38% in November, Second Baptist Houston’s pastor Ed Young said, “I think there are enough people in the city who still have and will vote godly principles. A lot of people did some soul searching and said ‘This is enough.’”

What can pastors do? Ahead of these developments, Russell Moore told Baptist editors in February that transgenderism is likely to come first to the church youth department as adolescents copy the blurring of male and female identities in the larger culture. Be ready.

For pastors, the call in 2016 is to preach Genesis 1-2 descriptive of the sexes and the whole of Scripture as prescriptive of marriage, family life, and sexual identity and behavior. Have we ever before needed sermons saying “boys will be boys” is no excuse for sin, but instead a plea for gender sanctity?

Meanwhile, the blurring continues—literally. Pantone Color Institute chose two hues as 2016 Color of the Year. They’re blending pink and blue to demonstrate “gender fluidity.” Pantone calls it “a color snapshot of what we see taking place in our culture that serves as an expression of a mood and an attitude.”

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Transgender identity is subject of proposed SBC resolution

Meredith Flynn —  June 2, 2014

BREAKING_NEWSNEWS | Two Southern Baptist leaders have submitted a resolution on transgender identity that could be considered June 10-11 by messengers at the SBC’s annual meeting in Baltimore.

“You know you’re a cultural tipping-point when both Newsweek and Time magazine run cover stories on your cause within the span of a single year,” wrote Denny Burk, who co-authored the resolution. “Such is the case with transgender, which both Newsweek and Time have declared to be the next phase of the gay rights revolution.”

Burk, a professor at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky., co-wrote the resolution with Andrew Walker, director of policy studies at the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The SBC Resolutions Committee will consider the measure prior to the annual meeting and decide whether to bring it (or an amended version) to the Convention for a vote.

On his blog, Burk outlined several reasons for the resolution: The American Psychiatric Association removed transgender from its list of disorders last year. Some school systems now allow students to use opposite-gender restrooms and locker rooms. And, Burk wrote, parents, medical professionals, and counselors are increasingly open to treatment – including sex reassignment surgery – that helps children and others identify with the gender they feel, rather than the one with which they were born.

“…Christians are going to have to have to meet the transgender challenge as a matter of great pastoral and missional urgency,” Burk wrote. “We must be clear about what the Bible teaches and be faithful to live that message out in a culture that is increasingly out of step with biblical norms.”

The full text of the proposed resolution is available at DennyBurk.com (scroll to the bottom of the post). It asks SBC voters to affirm several statements, including:

  • That “perceived conflict between their biological sex and their gender identity” is one way some people experience the brokenness sin brought into the world.
  • God’s design is that “gender identity should be determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception.”
  • Transgender persons should be invited to “trust in Christ and to experience renewal in the gospel.”
  • “That we regard our transgender neighbors as image-bearers of almighty God and therefore that we condemn acts of abuse or bullying committed against them.”
  • Opposition to efforts to bring biological sex in line with a different gender identity.
  • “Our love for the gospel and urgency for the Great Commission must include declaring the whole counsel of God, including what God’s word teaches about God’s design for us as male and female persons created in His image and for His glory.”
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