An Apostate Priestess Admonishes a President
On Tuesday, President Trump attended a prayer service at the National Cathedral and was upbraided by the preacher directly from the pulpit. The preacher was Mariann Edgar Budde, who is…
Denny Burk
Denny Burk is the President of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. He joined the faculty of Boyce College in 2008, where he currently serves as Professor of Biblical Studies. He also serves as one of the preaching pastors at Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He has written extensively about the Bible's teaching on sexuality and gender, including Male and Female He Created Them (Christian Focus, 2023), Transforming Homosexuality (P&R, 2015), and What Is the Meaning of Sex? (Crossway, 2013). He has also authored a commentary on the pastoral epistles (Crossway, 2017) and has written articles that have appeared in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Tyndale Bulletin, Bulletin for Biblical Research, and the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. He is married and has four children.
Do Egalitarians Need Safe Spaces?
The April 2024 issue of Christianity Today includes three cover stories addressing ongoing differences between complementarians and egalitarians. Titled “Division of Labor,” the cover asks whether egalitarians and complementarians are…
Should Christians attend “gay weddings”?
I have been writing and speaking about gender and sexuality for over decade and a half. Whenever I talk about transgenderism, one of the first practical questions I hear concerns…
Andy Stanley’s Version of Christianity
I just finished listening to Pastor Andy Stanley’s Sunday morning sermon to North Point Community Church. I have to say that it is one of the most subversively anti-Christian messages…
Misunderstood Mutuality: Responding to Ronald W. Pierce and Elizabeth A. Kay, “Mutuality in Marriage and Singleness”
Ronald Pierce and Elizabeth Kay have penned a chapter on 1 Corinthians 7:1-40 that they believe fills an important gap in the “evangelical gender debate” (108). They argue that this…
Eikon 5.1 Editorial
This issue of Eikon is devoted almost entirely to a chapter-by-chapter review of the third edition of Discovering Biblical Equality (DBE). Our reviews reveal that this third edition marks…
Should We Call God Mother? A Review of Amy Peeler’s Women and the Gender of God
Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Eikon. Feminist theologians have long wrestled with the question of God’s gender. In particular, they have chafed against…
Why Nashville and Why Now?
Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Fall 2022 issue of Eikon. When I left the office of CBMW on the last Monday of August 2017, I did not…
Report says Revoice Embraces Radical Gender Ideology
When organizers announced the program for the first Revoice conference in 2018, the controversy surrounding the meeting was sharp and protracted. It was a conference appealing to so-called Side-B “gay…
The Ancient Paths Affirm Complementarian Truths
The landmark work Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has a gem of a chapter tracing the history of women in various ministries throughout church history. For a short essay, it…
Wise Advice About Authority in the Home and Church
Jonathan Leeman has a really helpful article dealing with the proper use of pastoral and husbandly authority. This is really insightful stuff, and I commend it to you. There’s a…
Why Christians Resist Transgender Speech-Codes
I write this post to explain briefly why Christians are resisting the totalitarian speech codes of transgender propagandists. It’s not because we hate transgender people. On the contrary, we love…
The Difference between the Apple and the Worm
As I have observed popular debates about complementarianism over the years, I have noticed how people often confuse what the doctrine is with other associations that have little or nothing…
Is Complementarianism a Man-Made Doctrine?
Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Spring 2021 issue of Eikon. In 2019, I contributed an essay to this journal titled “Mere Complementarianism.”[1] I wrote the article in…
Is Complementarianism a Man-Made Doctrine?
In 2019, I wrote an essay for Eikon about “Mere Complementarianism.” I wrote the essay in part to confront an idea that seemed to be gaining traction within evangelical discussions…
PCA Report Names Sin While Not Being Named by It
Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Fall 2020 issue of Eikon. The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has been facing a great deal of internal controversy over the…
What does “act like men” mean in 1 Corinthians 16:13?
In her new book Recovering from Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, Aimee Byrd takes me and Owen Strachan to task for our understanding of 1 Corinthians 16:13. The verse reads as…
Polyamory and the Overton Window
If you had asked me ten years ago whether evangelicals would ever give up ground on the issue of homosexuality, I would have said “no way!” Sure, the evangelical movement…
Engaging a Viral Interview with N. T. Wright about Women in Ministry
A video interview with N. T. Wright recently went viral on Facebook (watch it below). In it, Wright is asked about women in ministry. It is clear that the interviewer…
Mere Complementarianism
I have noticed of late a growing chorus of what we might call “ex-complementarians” entering the fray of the evangelical gender debate. These folks are not identifying as egalitarians, but…
Does Ephesians 5 teach mutual submission?
“Submit to one another in the fear of Christ, wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord.” -Ephesians 5:21-22 In Ephesians 5:22-25, Paul directs wives to “submit” to their…
What’s in a name? The meaning and origin of “complementarianism”
Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted at DennyBurk.com under the title, “Complementarianism? What’s in a name?” Over the last several weeks, the evangelical interwebs have been astir with debates…
Introducing Eikon
The hallmark of late modern Western culture is that it has forgotten itself. It is largely post-Christian and has not retained God in its knowledge. Failure to see God as…
Must women really keep silent in the churches?
The interpretation of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 has proven to be more than a little controversial over the years. The reason for that is due in no small part to the…
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary adopts the Nashville Statement as a confessional standard.
The Baptist Press reports that the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has adopted The Nashville Statement as a confessional standard. We will have more to say about this in the near…
A Word to the Younger Women
Editor’s Note: This post is the fourth part of a series. Previous posts include: “Men and Women in Household of God,” “A Word to the Older Men,” and “A Word…
A Word to the Older Women
Editor’s Note: This post is the third part of a series. Other posts can be read here: “Men and Women in Household of God,” “A Word to the Older Men,”…
A Word to the Older Men
Editor’s Note: This post is the second part of a series. Other can be read here: “Men and Women in Household of God,” “A Word to the Older Women,” and…
Men and Women in the Household of God
Editor’s Note: This post is an introduction to a series. Posts in this series include: “A Word to the Older Men,” “A Word to the Older Women,” “A Word to…
The Nashville Statement confronts heresy, and that’s why we needed it.
Alister McGrath defines heresy with these words, “A heresy is a failed attempt at orthodoxy, whose fault lies not in its willingness to explore possibilities or press conceptual boundaries, but…
Symposium: Not a culture war document but a church document (Denny Burk)
[Editor’s note: This post is part of a symposium on the one-year anniversary of the Nashville Statement, which was released by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood on August 25,…
A Time for Moral Clarity
Evangelicals have been facing a moment of truth concerning abuse and misconduct in our own ranks. Recently, attention has been focused on Southwestern Seminary and its president. The controversy centers…
A manifesto not for the world but for the church
Mark Hemingway has a fascinating profile of Russell Moore over at The Weekly Standard. The piece focuses on the fallout among evangelicals from the 2016 election, but he includes a…
What the debate about female seminary professors is NOT about
DesiringGod.org posted the podcast heard around the evangelical world earlier this week. In the podcast, John Piper responds to the following question from a listener: “Should women be hired as…
A mere complementarian reading of the most contested verse in the evangelical gender debate—1 Timothy 2:12
Editor’s note: This article was originally posted at DennyBurk.com; used here with permission. Evangelicals seem to be more divided than ever about the issue of gender roles in the home…
John Piper answers, “Did Public Controversy over the Nashville Statement Hurt the Cause?”
On the most recent episode of “Ask Pastor John,” John Piper responds to the following question: “Did Public Controversy over the Nashville Statement Hurt the Cause?” The short answer is no,…
Responding to CT’s editorial against the Nashville Statement
Mark Galli has penned an editorial criticizing the Nashville Statement in the November issue of Christianity Today. He raises a number of concerns and claims that the statement “ended up…
Joe Rigney: Sola Scriptura, the Natural Law, and Sexual Ethics
In my book What Is the Meaning of Sex?, I made the case for a hybrid deontological/teleological approach to sexual ethics. I wish the case that I made there were…
Why the Nashville Statement now, and what about article 10?
As The Nashville Statement began to trend today on Twitter, we began to see a lot of support gathering for the statement. We also began to see a great deal…
CBMW Announcement: Colin Smothers named Executive Director of CBMW
I am pleased to announce that the board of CBMW has voted to appoint Colin Smothers to be Executive Director of CBMW. Smothers succeeds Grant Castleberry, who announced his resignation…
Godspeed and Semper fi, Grant Castleberry.
When the board asked me to serve as president of CBMW a year ago, there were a number of reasons why I agreed to serve. It wasn’t merely that I…
What the New York Times gets wrong about complementarianism
Tim Keller argues that one of the first rules of polemics is this: “Never attribute an opinion to your opponent that he himself does not own.” Even if the view…
Pastors and Women in Ministry
At the 2017 Gospel Coalition meeting last week, there was a fascinating panel discussion about pastors and women in ministry. It’s a discussion about how complementarian pastors can encourage and…
New issue of JBMW and thanks to outgoing editor, Dr. Jason Duesing
The most recent issue of The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has just been released. It includes my statement concerning the future of CBMW, which you can read here.…
New issue of JBMW and thanks to outgoing editor, Dr. Jason Duesing
The most recent issue of The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has just been released. It includes my statement concerning the future of CBMW, which you can read here.…
My Vision for the Future of CBMW
By Denny Burk, CBMW President Last Summer, the CBMW board chairman invited me to consider coming on board as the new president of the organization. As I began praying about…
Asking the Right Questions about Intersex Athletes — Part 2
By Denny Burk Yesterday, we looked at a controversy about an Olympic athlete who is reported to suffer from an intersex condition. Today, we acknowledge that from a Christian perspective,…
Asking the Right Questions about Intersex Athletes — Part 1
By Denny Burk As the Olympics wound up last week, there were numerous reports about an Olympic runner whose sex was a point of controversy. It is reported that this…
My Vision for the Future of CBMW
By Denny Burk Last month, the CBMW board chairman invited me to consider coming on board as the new president of the organization. As I began praying about this unexpected…