Thank you…

If you are reading this, it is likely because you are already familiar with the ministry of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. Maybe you received a physical copy of our journal, saw our #GiveCBMW campaign as a part of #GivingTuesday, or saw this post on our website. However you got here, we are glad you did!

With your continued support, prayers, and faithfulness, the ministry of CBMW was able to reach tens of thousands of pastors, families, churches, students, professors, and institutions in 2019. A highlight reel of our ministry accomplishments this past year would include:

  • The PCA General Assembly commending the Nashville Statement as a biblically faithful document to all its churches
  • The SBC adopting a resolution that relies on language from the Nashville Statement
  • Two issues of our new journal, Eikon, published, printed and distributed across the nation and globe
  • Major CBMW conferences and training events in Dallas, Indianapolis, Southern California, Canada, England, as well as several more smaller-venue events across the country
  • Scores of articles and resources published at CBMW.org and other platforms to equip the church

In 2020, we look forward to sharing even more of the glorious truths that the Bible makes clear regarding gender and sexuality. This ministry would not exist without you. So on behalf of the entire CBMW team, we say thank you for this ministry opportunity.

While you’re here, don’t miss a chance to read our new journal, the year-end letter from our president below, or the opportunity to make a tax-deductible gift to CBMW as part of your year-end giving. Blessings, and Merry Christmas!

A letter from the president

Dear Friend:

It is difficult to overstate the urgency of the moment we find ourselves in. As Christians, we face a culture that is in full-scale rebellion from God’s beautiful, distinct design of men and women. The evidence of this is all around us, but perhaps it is nowhere clearer than the increasing number of stories about gender-confused children who are being encouraged to ignore their biological sex in order to embrace a “transgender” identity.

Last month, I read the heartbreaking story of a mother of a transgender child—a story that she shared at a recent demonstration outside the Supreme Court. In her speech, this mother testifies about what transgender propaganda has done to her daughter. The propaganda has created official medical “standards of care” that are harmful to children. Read for yourself what this mother describes:

Like any parent, I felt betrayed when I found out a pediatric endocrinologist, someone who knows how powerful our bodies’ natural hormones are, would teach my 16-year old daughter to inject herself with testosterone, a primarily male hormone known and documented to have many horrible side effects on young girls including male pattern baldness, [genital] atrophy, infertility, and an increased risk of heart disease and cancer.

Like any parent, it is hard to believe that my once beautiful, healthy child, now 19 years old, is in and out of homelessness, bearded, her breasts amputated and reproductive organs removed, and living in extreme poverty, all just to be her “authentic self.” Doctors did this to her while she was still a minor, without my consent or any involvement. My child is mentally ill, no longer thriving, and yet our public schools, government, mental health professionals, medical doctors and pharmaceutical companies are telling me what is best for my child and that being opposed to this form of self-actualization is tantamount to abuse.

Like any parent, I am angry and full of rage that this is the only kind of “help” offered to my child and that parental rights are being stripped away, while doctors strip our children of their healthy reproductive organs. But most of all, my heart is shattered and I grieve for my child and for the life she now faces. Like any parent would.

This poor mother watched her daughter transform from a healthy baby girl into a surgically mutilated shell of her former self. Why? Because the entire medical establishment is not being driven by science when it comes to dealing with gender-confused children. It is horrific, but it is a reminder of how high the stakes are in our current cultural moment. Real harm is happening to real children, and hardly anyone seems to notice. Instead, many people who should know better are becoming complicit.

Christians have a particular responsibility to be ready to bear witness to what is good and right and true and to what promotes the good of our neighbors. If we don’t, who else will speak truth into these kinds of situations? Who will be salt and light for people who are being carried away by a destructive error? And yet, many Christians still fail to understand the issues, much less how the Bible applies to the difficult questions we are facing today.

Over the last thirty years, churches have found themselves facing questions about manhood and womanhood that were barely imagined when CBMW was founded. Western culture has embarked upon a total revision of sexual and gender norms. It has evicted the union of one man and one woman from the definition of marriage. With the transgender challenge, it has thrown into question what a man and a woman even are.

CBMW has sought to meet this challenge, and there is evidence that our work is bearing fruit. In 2017, CBMW led a coalition of evangelical leaders and scholars to approve the Nashville Statement, an evangelical confession defining the Bible’s teaching about homosexuality and transgenderism. The vision of the Nashville Statement is still expanding in its reach and influence. For example, over the summer the Presbyterian Church in America voted on the Nashville Statement as a biblically faithful statement and commended it to all the churches of the denomination. Likewise at its annual convention, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution on sexuality that relies on explicit language from the Nashville Statement.

CBMW’s mission is to equip churches and ministries with resources so that God’s people will be prepared to speak truth and love into some very difficult situations. As I write this, we are getting ready to close out another year of steady progress in this work. We have been traveling all over the country providing conferences and resources to churches and ministries about God’s special, distinct design of male and female:

*In April, we sponsored a session at the annual meeting of The Gospel Coalition. Kevin DeYoung addressed a crowd of over 500 people about biblical manhood and womanhood.

*In March, I led a marriage conference at Kindred Community Church in Anaheim, California with about 300 in attendance.

*In May, CBMW held a West Coast Conference at Compass Bible Church in Orange County, California. Over 400 attended sessions on biblical views of manhood, womanhood, sexuality, and gender.

*In June, over 150 attended a CBMW event where council member H. B. Charles spoke about the Bible’s teaching about men and women.

*In October, over 300 people turned out in East Lansing, Michigan for a conference I led on sexuality.

CBMW was also involved with other smaller events in Calgary, Dallas, Indiana, Southern California, and even London, England.

Perhaps our most exciting initiative this year was to publish two volumes of our rebranded journal under a new masthead, Eikon. You can access these and past issues for free online at CBMW.org/journal. In all of this work, we have been spreading the word about the Bible’s teaching concerning manhood, womanhood, sexuality, and complementarity.

While the biblical vision of the Nashville Statement is growing in its reach and influence, we still have a long way to go. And we need your help in this. First of all, we need your prayers. We want to be faithful stewards of the opportunities that God gives to us, and we want to bear faithful witness in the face of opposition (and there is much of it). Second, we need your financial support. As you make your end of the year plans for giving, would you consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the ministry of CBMW? Would you also prayerfully consider becoming a regular monthly partner of CBMW? To give, you can simply use the form below and the included envelope, or visit us at CBMW.org/give.

Thank you for your prayers and support. May the Lord’s richest blessings be on you and your family this Christmas.

Sincerely,

Denny Burk
President, CBMW


#GiveCBMW