Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”[1] Thus spoke the Reverend Mother in Frank Herbert’s classic novel, Dune. In response to her words another character replied, “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind.”[2] In Herbert’s fictional world that sacred law was handed down as a way to ensure that machines could never again enslave humanity.

When a group of Pharisees, hoping to trap Jesus into incriminating himself, ask him whether a marriage can be lawfully dissolved, Jesus refuses to take the bait. Rather than haggle with them over the legality or illegality of their first-century version of no-fault divorce, Jesus takes them back to Genesis 1–2, which establishes the biblical-anthropological foundation for the sexual binary on which marriage rests.

From the Archives | True Worship and the Idolatry of Works in the Christian Life

Christians understand the need to apply Scripture’s teaching on the sanctity of human life, but should we assume non-Christians share the same understanding? The sacred value of human life applies universally, whether Christian or not. So, if the sanctity of human life is universal, and not just for Christians, can there be a way of defending it that does not get dismissed by non-Christians as faith-dependent and thus irrelevant to secular law and public policy?

Fellipe do Vale. Gender as Love: A Theological Account of Human Identity, Embodied Desire, and Our Social Worlds. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2023. Fellipe do Vale provides a theological account of gender in his book Gender as Love: A Theological Account of Human Identity, Embodied Desire, and Our Social Worlds.

Philip B. Payne The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood: How God’s Word Consistently Affirms Gender Equality. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023. Introduction The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood represents Philip Payne’s most recent attempt to affirm the biblical basis for men and women as equal in the home, church, and society. The book summarizes and extends his prior work on the subject, particularly his 2009 work Man and Woman, One in Christ.

In June 1858, Abraham Lincoln famously declared that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” He was quoting Jesus but spoke in the context of slavery. Lincoln said it would be impossible for the nation to endure permanently “half slave and half free.” A reckoning was coming. America would have to become “all one thing or all the other.” And so it did. Lincoln’s insight — that moral evil can’t be contained within a polity without inevitably corrupting the whole — feels awfully relevant again.

Back in 2010 I spent some time in Uganda and was asked by a local pastor, “What do Americans think of (then) President Barack Obama?” I don’t think this dear brother realized how loaded of a question this was! It depends on who you ask. As the saying goes, “Ask two people, get three opinions.” Similarly, when the question of IVF is raised among people who are traditionally regarded as conservative, you’ll likely get a similar response.

In state after state, a quiet revolution is underway. Birth certificates are being rewritten. Mothers and fathers are being replaced by “intended parents” in legal language. Children are increasingly defined not through embodied origins, but through state-backed contracts. If they are even aware of it, Americans have been told that these changes are necessary for adult equality. But beneath the surface lies a deeper question — one the church cannot afford to ignore: What is a human child?

Phoebe Was Not the First Preacher of Paul’s Letter to the Romans Never has more been made of so little than what egalitarians make of Paul’s mention of Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2. This is no disrespect to Phoebe, who clearly was a faithful Christian woman from the environs of Corinth. But egalitarians have fabricated an entire mythology around this woman that is not justified by what Paul actually says about her.