Sexual Ethics

As 2018 winds to a close, we want to express our deep and sincere gratitude to the many faithful readers of Ref21. We continue our commitment to call the church to a reformation that recovers clarity and conviction about the great evangelical truths of the gospel and that encourages their...

Not so long ago, a bit of internet clickbait urged me to view a slideshow of gay marriage proposals guaranteed to 'hit you in the feels' (or something akin to that). That such an appeal could be made at all testifies to the pagan decadence of American culture. But it underlined for me that the...

The Revoice Conference is history. When first announced with its advertised purpose statement, sponsors, plenary sessions and speakers, my Session requested I pastorally address it for them and our congregation, especially since it was hosted by a PCA church in St. Louis and contained students,...

We used to talk about the New Age. When I first began to think about how a worldview can shape culture, New Age was all the rage. Now noone even mentions New Age. So it must have failed, right? Actually, quite the opposite: it became normal. That phrase "spiritual but not religious" is just one...

One feature of life in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is the unveiling of the annual buzz-word for our General Assembly . This year, the word is "welcoming." So far as it goes, this is a fine aspiration for our denomination. We, of course, want our doors to be open not merely to certain...

At present, two popular--yet antithetical--positions about sexuality and identity exist within the orthodox Christian community. In their recently book Transforming Homosexuality , authors Denny Burk and Heath Lambert identify these as the traditional and neo-traditional positions. Both of these...

I was a junior in high school when the Roseanne episode featuring a lesbian kiss aired on network television, and I can remember well the controversy that surrounded that episode. Recent conversations surrounding the presence of a nine-year-old character named Mark on the Roseanne reboot -- a boy...

These days, it seems that almost every week social media uncovers another eruption along the Presbyterian Church in America's (PCA) volcanic fault line between social accommodation/compassion and biblical obedience. This week, a conference promoting strategies to address same sex attraction (SSA)...

In 1869, the German physiologist, Friedrich Goltz, published a series of conclusions from tests he performed on frogs. In his book, Beitrage zur Lehre von den Functionen der Nervencentren des Frosches ( Contributions to the Theory of the Functions of the Nerve Centers of the Frog ) , Golz revealed...

Over at Mortification of Spin , Todd Pruitt has made waves by sounding an alarm over Andrew White, the PCA ruling elder who--as a Democratic candidate for governor in Texas--has stated his commitment to legalized abortion and gay marriage . As reported by Pruitt, Mr. White stated on Texas Public...