First Things on Matthew Vines

Over at First Things Owen Strachan and Andrew Walker have written a response to Matthew Vines’ book God and the Gay Christian.

The final paragraph was a knock out:

We do not judge a Christian teacher only by his age or experience, to be sure. But the new progressives have an authority problem. Whether their own family members or martyred apostles, they show no hesitation in correcting those who would—and should—teach them. They do so, furthermore, with precious little confessional and congregational accountability. Ecclesial accountability—though no fail-safe—is given us for our good. Beware Greeks bearing bonds, you might say, and bloggers without churches. Put it this way: If we’re faced with a choice between a precocious twenty-something with lots of neat new ideas about sexuality and gender untested by the scholarly community on the one hand, and an apostle gored by a Roman sword because the Holy Spirit spoke through him in tones ancient authorities considered hostile to imperial rule on the other, we’re banking on the latter.

The sexuality and religion debate obviously isn’t going away as the churches find themselves pulled in various directions in the on-going cultural shift about sexuality, identity, and religion.

Again, I recommend checking out The Marin Foundation and the work they are doing to bring various groups together to learn to live with each other.