This past week (Aug of 2017) I was part of an effort that put America’s theological and moral fault lines fully in view. I was a signer of something called the Nashville Statement, a document adopted by a group of evangelical Christians seeking to reaffirm traditional Christian values on sexuality.
Within hours, the vitriol in response to our document showed why such clarification is necessary.
One of the most intense lines of criticism was that we, signers of the document, dismiss the pain and suffering of those who live outside those historic Biblical sexual norms. That we weren’t acknowledging the rejection they feel in the church and were making their sins appear more significant than our own.
To be clear: Christians understand the brokenness of the world. We signers know ourselves, like all humanity, to be broken by sin. We have no right to face the world from a claim of moral superiority. We know and confess that Christians have often failed to speak the truth in love.
In releasing the Nashville Statement, we in fact are acting out of love and concern for people who are increasingly confused about what God has clarified in Holy Scripture.
Evangelical Christians believe that God has spoken in the Bible, and that obedience to what he has spoken is both true and essential for human wholeness, freedom, and fulfillment — for human flourishing.
We fully understand that our culture is increasingly influenced by the promise that human flourishing can come by what is styled as sexual liberation and the overthrowing of historic Christianity’s witness to God’s purpose in making us as sexual beings — even making us as male and female.
The statement was carefully written. Love of neighbor requires us to speak clearly and very specifically to the truths affirmed and the errors denied in the document.
It would be much easier to be quiet, to let the moral revolution proceed unanswered, and to seek some kind of refuge in silence or ambiguity. For the sake of same-sex attracted people and others, we did not believe we could remain silent — or unclear — and be faithful.
The backlash to the document shows why it is so needed: While the Christian church has held to a normative understanding of biblical sexuality for over two millennia, we now face challenges to biblical teaching that require an unprecedented level of specificity. It affirmed what would have been universally acknowledged as the historic Christian faith without question or controversy until just the last several years.
We understand that we live in an increasingly post-Christian world, and that a vast revolution in sexual morality is now fundamentally reshaping the landscape. Churches and pastors, Christian institutions and individual Christians, are now under intense pressure to adopt this new sexual morality, along with its redefinition of marriage and gender.
The “Nashville Statement,” like many other doctrinal declarations common to Christian history, seeks to summarize, clarify, and affirm what Holy Scripture reveals. In this case, we find ourselves clarifying what no previous generation of Christians has been called upon to clarify. We must now clarify and specify what the Bible teaches about human sexuality, marriage, and what it means to be made male and female.
The Nashville Statement affirms God’s design for marriage as “a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman.” Those are the very purposes of marriage affirmed, for example, in the historic Book of Common Prayer. Chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage are affirmed as the clear teaching of the Bible. We deny that God designed marriage “to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship.” The Christian church — in all of its major branches — has joined in this denial for 2,000 years.
We affirm that God created Adam and Eve as the first human beings, as the statement says, “in his own image, equal before God as persons, and distinct as male and female.” Further, we affirm that God calls his human creatures “to accept the God-ordained link between one’s biological sex and one’s self-conception as male or female.”
The statement denies that same-sex attraction “is part of the natural goodness of God’s original creation, or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel.”
Pastors, parents, and individual Christians are asking for clear answers to what they see as new questions. We have attempted to provide them. Churches and Christian institutions have asked for a statement to which they can point for reference and affirmation. We have sought to assist them.
Many of the responses to the “Nashville Statement” have underlined the urgency and the necessity of the document. One response, offered as the “Denver Statement,” released by a church in Colorado, specifically affirms “that the glorious variety of gender and sexual expression is a reflection of God’s original creation design and are aspects of human flourishing.”
That affirmation is certainly in keeping with the moral revolution, but intellectual honesty requires the admission that it cannot be squared with the Bible’s account of creation. The “Denver Statement” denies “that sexual attraction for the same sex is outside the natural goodness of God’s original creation.” That fits the new sexual morality quite well, but runs counter to the consistent teaching of Scripture in both the Old and New Testaments.
Several of the responses have been quite candid in celebrating the overthrow of two thousand years of Christian moral teaching. Fair enough, but such a celebration acknowledges a severe break with historic Christianity. The “Denver Statement” makes this point clearly: “Christians at the dawn of the twenty-first century find themselves living in an exciting, beautiful, liberating, and holy period of historic transition.”
In less than one week, the “Nashville Statement” has marked an ironic achievement. It has incited those who would replace Christianity with a new religion teaching a new morality to be explicit in their rejection of the historic Christian faith.
The main goal of the “Nashville Statement” is to point all persons, regardless of the form of our struggles over sexuality or self-identity, to salvation and wholeness in Christ. With all our hearts, we believe that the sexual revolution cannot deliver on its promises, but that Christ always delivers on his.
The very fact that the statement made headlines and was greeted with shock and surprise in some quarters underlines why it was needed. We believe that human dignity, human flourishing, and true human freedom are at stake. We know that two rival visions of what it means to be human are now fully apparent. We stand by the vision affirmed in the historic Christian faith.
Albert Mohler Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Preamble
Evangelical Christians at the dawn of the twenty-first century find themselves living in a period of historic transition. As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being. By and large the spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life. Many deny that God created human beings for his glory, and that his good purposes for us include our personal and physical design as male and female. It is common to think that human identity as male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an individual’s autonomous preferences. The pathway to full and lasting joy through God’s good design for his creatures is thus replaced by the path of shortsighted alternatives that, sooner or later, ruin human life and dishonor God.
This secular spirit of our age presents a great challenge to the Christian church. Will the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ lose her biblical conviction, clarity, and courage, and blend into the
spirit of the age? Or will she hold fast to the word of life, draw courage from Jesus, and
unashamedly proclaim his way as the way of life? Will she maintain her clear, counter-cultural
witness to a world that seems bent on ruin?
We are persuaded that faithfulness in our generation means declaring once again the true story of
the world and of our place in it—particularly as male and female. Christian Scripture teaches that
there is but one God who alone is Creator and Lord of all. To him alone, every person owes glad-
hearted thanksgiving, heart-felt praise, and total allegiance. This is the path not only of glorifying God,
but of knowing ourselves. To forget our Creator is to forget who we are, for he made us for
himself. And we cannot know ourselves truly without truly knowing him who made us. We did
not make ourselves. We are not our own. Our true identity, as male and female persons, is given
by God. It is not only foolish, but hopeless, to try to make ourselves what God did not create us
to be.
We believe that God’s design for his creation and his way of salvation serve to bring him the
greatest glory and bring us the greatest good. God’s good plan provides us with the greatest
freedom. Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it in overflowing measure. He is
for us and not against us. Therefore, in the hope of serving Christ’s church and witnessing
publicly to the good purposes of God for human sexuality revealed in Christian Scripture, we
offer the following affirmations and denials.
Article 1
WE AFFIRM that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong
union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant
love between Christ and his bride the church.
WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous
relationship. We also deny that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made
before God.
Article 2
WE AFFIRM that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity
within marriage.
WE DENY that any affections, desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or
outside marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality.
Article 3
WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in his own image, equal
before God as persons, and distinct as male and female.
WE DENY that the divinely ordained differences between male and female render them unequal
in dignity or worth.
Article 4
WE AFFIRM that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original
creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing.
WE DENY that such differences are a result of the Fall or are a tragedy to be overcome.
Article 5
WE AFFIRM that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral
to God’s design for self-conception as male or female.
WE DENY that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the God-appointed link
between biological sex and self-conception as male or female.
Article 6
WE AFFIRM that those born with a physical disorder of sex development are created in the
image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other image-bearers. They are
acknowledged by our Lord Jesus in his words about “eunuchs who were born that way from their
mother's womb.” With all others they are welcome as faithful followers of Jesus Christ and
should embrace their biological sex insofar as it may be known.
WE DENY that ambiguities related to a person’s biological sex render one incapable of living a
fruitful life in joyful obedience to Christ.
Article 7
WE AFFIRM that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes
in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.
WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s
holy purposes in creation and redemption.
Article 8
WE AFFIRM that people who experience sexual attraction for the same sex may live a rich and
fruitful life pleasing to God through faith in Jesus Christ, as they, like all Christians, walk in
purity of life.
WE DENY that sexual attraction for the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God’s
original creation, or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel.
Article 9
WE AFFIRM that sin distorts sexual desires by directing them away from the marriage covenant
and toward sexual immorality— a distortion that includes both heterosexual and homosexual
immorality.
WE DENY that an enduring pattern of desire for sexual immorality justifies sexually immoral
behavior.
Article 10
WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that
such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.
WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral
indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.
Article 11
WE AFFIRM our duty to speak the truth in love at all times, including when we speak to or
about one another as male or female.
WE DENY any obligation to speak in such ways that dishonor God’s design of his image bearers as male and female.
Article 12
WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ gives both merciful pardon and transforming
power, and that this pardon and power enable a follower of Jesus to put to death sinful desires
and to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ is insufficient to forgive all sexual sins and to give
power for holiness to every believer who feels drawn into sexual sin.
Article 13
WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender self conceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the God-ordained link between one’s biological
sex and one’s self-conception as male or female.
WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ sanctions self-conceptions that are at odds with God’s
revealed will.
Article 14
WE AFFIRM that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ’s
death and resurrection forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person who
repents of sin and trusts in Christ alone as Savior, Lord, and supreme treasure.
WE DENY that the Lord’s arm is too short to save or that any sinner is beyond his reach.
Scripture References*
Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15-25; 3:1-24; Ex. 20:14; 20:17; Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Dt. 5:18, 21; 22:5; Jdg. 19:22; 2 Sam.11:1-12:15; Job 31:1; Ps. 51:1-19; Prov. 5:1-23; 6:20-35; 7:1-27; Isa. 59:1; Mal. 2:14; Matt. 5:27–30;19:4-6, 8-9, 12; Acts 15:20, 29; Rom. 1:26–27; 1:32; 1 Cor. 6:9–11, 18-20; 7:1-7; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 5:24; Eph. 4:15, 20–24; 5:31–32; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 4:3-8; 1 Tim. 1:9–10, 15; 2 Tim. 2:22; Titus 2:11-12; Heb.13:4; Jas. 1:14–15; 1 Pet. 2:11; Jude 7
* Scripture texts are not a part of the original document but have been added subsequently for reference
The Nashville Statement is an evangelical Christian statement of faith (drafted in August of 2017) relating to human sexuality and gender roles authored by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) in Nashville, Tennessee. The Statement expresses support for an opposite-sex definition of marriage, for faithfulness within marriage, for chastity outside marriage, and for a link between biological sex and "self-conception as male and female." The Statement sets forth the signatories' opposition to LGBT sexuality, same-sex marriage, polygamy, polyamory, adultery, and fornication. It was criticized by egalitarian Christians and LGBT campaigners, as well as by several conservative religious figures.(copied from Wikipedia)
