This past August 29, 2017, approximately 150 evangelical leaders issued what is being called “The Nashville Statement.” It has been characterized as a “Christian manifesto” on the biblical perspective of human sexuality. While I do not know all the signatories, there are several I do recognize who command my respect as men of God.
It has a preamble and fourteen articles each comprised of an affirmation and corresponding denial about human sexuality. It was issued by The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I have read it and can say it is a solidly Scriptural document.
It affirmed that the only marriage sanctioned by God is between one man and one woman, and God calls us to “chastity outside marriage and fidelity within marriage.”
Article 10 states, “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.”
What Article 10 means is one cannot truly claim to be Christian and approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism. This statement calls homosexuality and transgenderism “self-conceptions,” that is, they deny God’s purpose in human sexuality and/or their birth gender in favor of what they decide to perceive themselves to be.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s biblical support for the Nashville Statement is, “Know that the Lord Himself is God: it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves,” Psalm 100:3. If we believe the Scriptures we must believe marriage was never meant to be between two men or two women and our gender is assigned at birth.
Of course, those within the LGBT community and those who sympathize with their agenda have been whining about the Nashville Statement since it was published. But most of the complaints can be summed up in the words of activist DeRay McKesson, he said, “The God I know does not support the #Nashville Statement.”
His is right because the God he knows is a god he has imagined, a god he imagines to agree with his perspective, an idol he has fashioned in his own image, not the God of the Bible. The Nashville Statement is predicated on what the Bible teaches, not what men think or imagine about God.
The question on my mind is why these men thought such a statement was “urgently needed.” There is no other teaching in the Bible any clearer than the teachings on human sexuality and gender. That’s why transgressors are enraged by it, and any believer who is confused about the issues is not reading the Bible or is reading it and not believing it.
The Christian already has a manifesto, it’s called the Bible. And if we do not trust and obey what it says another statement is meaningless.
Gary,
I agree with the Nashville Statement 100%, those christians who would twist the teachings of God’s word to be more inclusive or PC or pander to this fallen world need to be called out and their commitment to Christ needs to be called into question. The Bible is very clear on the subject of sexuality and ever since recorded history man has tried to make God fit and be what we want Him to be not the other way around. Heaven help us, Sodom and Gomorra still lives in man today. Satan’s agenda is to blind man to what God has said is a sin and to try and normalize it, satan has tricked the world into seeing themselves as little g god’s that can do as they please and make the rules as they go.
Sadly, there are already individuals and certain groups claiming to be “Christian” denouncing the Nashville Statement.