Friday, June 09, 2006

More T4G Bloggers on Gender Issues, Plus an Intriguing Observation

Ligon Duncan's post is pretty thick, but worth the mental energy. I think he connects with the point Ryan Martin was making in the comments of my previous post.

Al Mohler
analyzes Dever's recent discussion of the generation gap in evangelicalism, with particular attention to the militancy of the younger evangelicals:
I see this as part of the larger pattern visible in the church today. I can see it in the students at the seminary and I can sense it among younger, seriously-minded pastors. Put bluntly, this younger generation has been, of necessity, ready to assume a counter-cultural posture and then to find a way to contend for their convictions in the context of hostility, derision, and worse. In a very real sense, this generation has been swimming upstream all their lives. They know nothing of the cultural Christianity their parents took for granted. Even in pockets like the deep South, where cultural Christianity still remains a factor, young Christians soon find themselves facing a very different context when they go to the university, move to a large city, or enter the professional world.

Their parents, on the other hand, may find a counter-cultural posture to be strange and difficult. They may share the same convictions concerning God's gift of gender and sexuality, but they are less enthusiastic about standing apart from the dominant culture. When they went to seminary and graduate school, egalitarianism appeared to be ascendant.

1 comment:

Ryan Martin said...

Thanks for pointing me Ligon's way, Ben. I find the reasons he lists very compelling. Rarely do we think in this way, where we consider the theological implications of the philosophy we are embracing.