The Plausibility Problem Ed Shaw
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Purposeful Sexuality
If God means for us to save sex for marriage, why doesn't he just zap us with sexuality on our wedding night? Why do most of us experience sexual feelings throughout our adult lives, not just in the safe confines of marriage? Is limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman anything but outdated prejudice? What is our sexuality actually for? Today's culture overwhelmingly tells us that sex is essential for human flourishing. Far too often the church perpetuates the same message - as long as you are married. But far from being liberating, this idolising of sex leaves us even more sexually broken than before. With refreshing honesty and clarity, Ed Shaw calls on the church to rediscover its confidence in the Bible's teaching about our ability to experience or express sexual feelings. He points us to how God's word reveals that sexuality's ultimate purpose is to help us better know God and the full power of his passionate love. He shows us how this is surprisingly good news for all our joys and struggles with sexuality.
Still Time to Care
Charting the path forward for our churches and ministries in providing care—not a cure— for our non-straight sisters and brothers who are living lives of costly obedience to Jesus. At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people who turn to Jesus. It was C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer and John Stott who were among the most respected leaders within theologically orthodox Protestantism. We see with them a positive pastoral approach toward gay people, an approach that viewed homosexuality as a fallen condition experienced by some Christians who needed care more than cure. With the birth and rise of the ex-gay movement, the focus shifted from care to cure. As a result, there are an estimated 700,000 people alive today who underwent conversion therapy in the United States alone. Many of these patients were treated by faith-based, testimony-driven parachurch ministries centered on the ex-gay script. Despite the best of intentions, the movement ended with very troubling results. Yet the ex-gay movement died not because it had the wrong sex ethic. It died because it was founded on a practice that diminished the beauty of the gospel. Yet even after the closure of the ex-gay umbrella organization Exodus International in 2013, the ex-gay script continues to walk about as the undead among us, pressuring people like me to say, "I used to be gay, but I'm not gay anymore. Now I'm just same-sex attracted." For orthodox Christians, the way forward is to take a close look at our history. It is time again to focus with our Neo-Evangelical fathers on caring over attempting to cure. With warmth and humor, as well as original research, Still Time to Care provides: Guidance for the gay person who hears the gospel and finds themselves smitten by the life-giving call of Jesus. Guidance for the church to repent of its homophobia and instead offer gospel-motivated love and compassion.
A Better Story
Author: Glynn Harrison
language: en
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
Release Date: 2017-01-19
The architects of the sexual revolution won over the popular imagination because they knew the power of story. They drew together radical new ideologies, often complex and hard to grasp, and melded them into the simpler structure of narrative. Crucially, they cast narratives that appealed to the moral instincts of ordinary, decent people. This moral vision overwhelmed the church and silenced its faltering apologists. The author argues that if Christians still believe they have have good news in the sphere of sexual ethics, then two big tasks lie ahead. Our first priority is to work out what has gone so badly wrong, both in our understanding and application of what the Bible teaches and the way we have presented our case to the non-churched. And then we must offer a better story, one that fires the imagination with such force that people will say, 'I want that to be true.' This book offers a confident, biblically rooted moral vision which needs to be shared with prayer and courage.