Written by Linda Jernigan

It is the opinion of some that the ex-gay movement is dead or near death following the cowardly retreat of Exodus International. I am here to declare emphatically that nothing could be further from the truth. Ex-homosexuals are more focused and more determined than ever to ensure our message is transmitted globally to the ears and hearts of homosexuals everywhere. 

Many have concluded that because many homosexual transformations include setbacks (as virtually all change from sin to rejection of sin does), they should all be viewed as utterly fallacious. I disagree. 

There are ex-homosexuals, including me, whom God has freed from the bondage of homosexuality, and we have remained free of this sexual sin since our conversion. There is a concerted effort to suppress our testimonies in hopes that we will go away. But we will not go away until every person who desires to be free of homosexuality knows there is a way of escape. The way is Jesus the Christ. He is The Way, The Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).  

The homosexual community would love for everyone to believe that homosexuality is the one thing in all of life’s experiences that has absolutely no exit. How ridiculous. The conversions of alcoholics, drug addicts, gamblers, fornicators, porn addicts, and adulterers are never disputed or challenged. When someone exits homosexuality, however, they are not merely challenged; they are maligned and rejected as liars from the community that preaches acceptance and tolerance.  While the homosexual community accepts the transformation from heterosexuality to homosexuality as truthful and morally legitimate, they reject any transformation in the other direction and the value of chastity for those who never experience heterosexual attraction. How is that possible?  

It is possible because they believe that we have stuffed our fingers in our ears and covered our eyes so we cannot hear or see the double-standard and the preposterous rhetoric they spew in their speeches. 

Alan Chambers said of Exodus International, “We’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism.”  Although vitality seems to have escaped Alan Chambers and Exodus International, the ex-gay movement is a living, breathing organism because of the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and we have the testimonies of others to confirm the fact that God is transforming and converting homosexuals into ex-homosexuals because He loves us.  

I am reminded of the story in 1 Kings when the prophet Elijah thought he was the only one left. God reminded Elijah that He had over seven thousand people who had not bowed their knees (succumbed to the pressure to conform). As a member of the ex-gay community, I shout at the top of my lungs that even though Exodus International bowed out of the fight after over three decades of positively affecting lives, the ex-gay community is not weakened, confused, shaky, or capitulating. Our message will not change because God does not change.  Homosexuality is sin. God disapproves of it, but He made a way of escape through His Son Jesus Christ.  

Ex-gays are here, we are involved, and we will not quit.

Editor’s Note:  Help Linda spread her powerful testimony of deliverance from homosexuality (19 years) by supporting her effort to distribute her new DVD and book nationally.  People need to hear the truth:  Homosexuality is a behavior that can be changed.  Click HERE to learn more and/or support her work.

Written by Weston Gentry, Christianity Today

Exodus International president Alan Chambers has, in the past week, explained the Orlando-based ministry’s recent U-turn on reparative therapy to everyone from The New York Times to NPR to MSNBC’s Hardball.

And while the organization’s stance remains acceptable to most evangelicals, some scholars fear that Chambers’s theological convictions—sprinkled throughout those interviews—have not.

“It’s not that he is simply not saying the warnings [against homosexual activity] in Scripture. I could live with that,” Pittsburgh Theological Seminary professor Robert Gagnon said of Chambers’s recent comments. “It’s that he is saying the exact opposite of what Scripture clearly teaches … . He’s preaching an anti-gospel.”

The theological heresy in question is antinomianism. The term was coined by Martin Luther to refer to those who believe that since faith is sufficient for salvation, Christians are not obligated to keep God’s moral law.

Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice and a plenary speaker at Exodus’s 2009 Freedom Conference, said that a June interview in The Atlantic shows that Chambers’s views have veered. “Some of us choose very different lives than others,” Chambers said of gay Christians in same-sex marriages. “But whatever we choose, it doesn’t remove our relationship with God.”

When asked to clarify whether or not that meant “a person living a gay lifestyle won’t go to hell, as long as he or she accepts Jesus Christ as personal savior,” he replied, “My personal belief is … while behavior matters, those things don’t interrupt someone’s relationship with Christ.” In the course of the interview, Chambers made it clear that he believes that homosexual acts are sinful.

A 35-page response written by Gagnon called into question not only Chambers’s soteriology, but also his ability to continue his 11-plus years of leading Exodus, which boasts some 260 affiliates domestically and internationally.

According to Gagnon, Chambers’s statements unwittingly affirm that active homosexuals need only make an “intellectual assent” or “pray a prayer” to guard against eternal punishment, instead of stipulating the importance of repentance and change.

“I am not saying [Chambers] has to—in a sort of callous, unloving way—shout from the rooftops, ‘You are going to hell,'” said Gagnon. “But he does need to make clear that there are these warnings [against homosexual behavior] in Scripture. It would be unloving and ungracious for him to assure people of things that Scripture does not.”

Echoing the criticisms of “cheap grace” popularized by the late German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gagnon said that Chambers’s remarks “provide assurance to people that all is well when they live a life not led by the power of the Holy Spirit, but are led by the controlling influence of sin.”

“In reality, all is not well,” he said. “[Chambers] unintentionally deceives people into extending this philosophy of ‘cheap grace’ in their life, which puts them at risk of not inheriting the kingdom [of God].”

Defending his public remarks, Chambers told Christianity Today, “If someone tells me that they have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ—in the way I understand it and have experienced it—they still know Jesus regardless of what types of behavior they’ve chosen to be involved in.”

“I don’t know how anyone could call grace cheap when it cost Jesus everything,” said Chambers. “I find it disheartening that we [evangelicals] are so inconsistent and over-focused on one group of people over another. We aren’t talking about this in any other subculture of people except this one [the LGBTQ community].”

Chambers says he isn’t advocating that gay Christians simply “lie down and give up.” The 40-year-old ex-gay husband and father of two maintains that celibacy is a gay Christian’s most biblical option. But he prefers encouraging people to “seek Christ” over “shaming them into a particular set of patterns of behavior.”

“Our focus should never be on how good we do, but on how good God is,” Chambers said. “When we are focused on the truth of his word and the grace that he embodied, I don’t think your life can help but be changed.”

Some critics traced their concerns over Chambers’s soteriology to his home church, Grace Church Orlando. Senior pastor Clark Whitten, who serves as Exodus’s chairman and recently published Pure Grace, could not be reached in time for comment. But he explains on the church’s website that only God can judge those “who say they are Christian yet continue in their sin,” so “the best thing we can do for that person is to keep loving them and telling them about our awesome King who died for them.”

Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, finds Chambers’s motives commendable but his doctrine problematic.

“I can only imagine the sort of situation he finds himself in—trying to speak in a winsome sort of way to people who feel hated by evangelicals,” said Moore. “I just think that he has uploaded some really bad, reactionary tendencies from popular evangelicalism.”

“There is something going on in evangelicalism where everyone is always reacting against whatever error they encountered in childhood,” said Moore. “A lot of people who grew up in legalist, performance-based churches are over-reacting with an antinomian, repentance-lacking gospel.”

“The problem biblically is: legalism sends people to hell and antinomianism sends people to hell,” he said. “Reacting against a hellish-legalism with a hellish-antinomianism is still sending people to hell.”

Unfazed by the accusations of theological error, Chambers addressed his detractors with some pointed words.

“It’s disappointing to see Christians drive personal agendas at the expense of other human beings,” he said. “We’ve received a tremendous response from men and women who are desperate for grace.”

(Read Laurie Higgins’ take on this controversy HERE.)

Originally posted at Christianitytoday.com.

The president of Exodus International, Alan Chambers, has just announced in an extended apology to homosexuals, that he is closing Exodus International, the ministry for those who experience unwanted same-sex attraction, and from its ashes he is creating a new organization titled “Reduce Fear.” The “fear” to which the name refers emanates from theologically orthodox churches that teach the whole counsel of God, including the pesky parts about God’s condemnation of homosexual acts. Apparently, Chambers doesn’t want to scare those who affirm homosexuality with bothersome biblical truths about eternity.

This doesn’t come as a surprise to those who have been closely watching Chambers’ slow abandonment of orthodoxy and his concomitant embrace of the “gay Christian” movement, which promotes the heresy that Christians may affirm a homosexual identity and remain in homosexual relationships.

A year ago in  an interview with The Atlantic, Chambers articulated a tidbit of his exegetically questionable theology:

Atlantic: Does that mean a person living a gay lifestyle won’t go to hell, as long as he or she accepts Jesus Christ as personal savior?

Chambers: My personal belief is that everyone has the opportunity to know Christ, and that while behavior matters, those things don’t interrupt someone’s relationship with Christ. But that’s a touchy issue in the conservative group I run with. (emphasis added)

For those who remain uncertain about Chambers’ deviation from the path of theological soundness, please watch this video of his appearance at a Gay Christian Network event.

Chambers’ transition to heresy has been accompanied by dizzying changes to Exodus’ Board of Directors over the past two years. Here’s a glimpse into that protean board.

Feb. 2011 board included Dennis Jernigan, Ron Dennis, and Jeff Winter
By June 2011 board had added John Warren
By Oct. 2011 board had lost Ron Dennis and Jeff Winter and added Mike Goeke and Patrick Peyton
By Dec. 2011 board had added Kathy Koch
By June 2012 board had lost Dennis Jernigan
By August 2012 board had lost Mike Goeke and Patrick Payton
By March 2013 board had added Bob Ragan
By April 2013 board had lost Bob Ragan
By June 2013 board had added Tony Moore

The troubling constant on the board is board chairman Rev. Clark Whitten about whose theology Dr. Robert A. Gagnon has warned here  and here.

More recently Dr. Gagnon wrote this about Chambers’ transformation:

I’m not suggesting that the Exodus leadership wants believers to experience grace without discipleship, dying to one’s self, and letting Christ live in them. I am saying, though, that they assure self-professed believers (falsely) that the nature of grace is such that believers can have one without the other….

Alan Chambers now calls “evangelical” a “dirty word” that he no longer applies to Exodus or to himself (“Guests in an Ever Changing Culture—Letter from Alan Chambers March 2013”). He complains that Evangelicalism is too “black and white” and he assures us that God is not “black and white,” which presumably means that God’s aim is to shade the light into gray. The story of Christ is now the story of Gray breaking into the darkness.

Evangelicalism, Mr. Chambers complains, gives too much attention to “right and wrong” and requires one to “take a stand” on moral issues. Chambers cries: “Gone are the days of evangelizing through scare tactics, moral legislation, and church discipline.” So instead the Exodus leadership prefers to assure self-professed Christians who engage in unrepentant homosexual practice that they are going to heaven irrespective of whether they bring their life into line with a confession of Christ’s lordship. The Exodus leadership refuses to take a stand against “gay marriage” even as it takes public policy stances on issues that homosexual activists support. And the Exodus leadership categorically rejects church discipline despite the fact that it is commanded by Jesus and Paul.

Earlier this month Alan Chambers even went so far as to insert secretly the e-mail address of Jeremy Hooper, an abrasive homosexual activist, into the middle of a private group email thread containing a number of pro-family leaders (including moi). This led to a number of misrepresentations online by homosexual activist sites and even Salon.com. This deceitful alignment with a person who maligns those who believe in a male-female foundation for marriage is not exactly a model for Christian conduct, certainly not for someone leading what is supposed to be a Christian ministry.

…

In an Exodus post a couple of weeks ago Leslie Chambers affirmed her husband’s severance of the transformed life from genuine saving faith, saying that while obedience to God is preferred it is not “required”. Neither Leslie nor Alan appears to realize that a necessary byproduct of true faith is a life lived for God.

As Dr. Gagnon mentioned, Chambers’ dissolution of Exodus was accompanied by his serious ethical lapse regarding an email group. A couple of months ago, a well-known and well-respected conservative author sent an email to a group of conservatives. Chambers responded to the entire group, angry that a person or persons in this large group have allegedly used terms in some context that Chambers finds offensive. He never identified the person or persons who used the term/s, nor did he identify the context.

One of the email recipients noticed that Chambers had surreptitiously added homosexual activist Jeremy Hooper, who has a blog titled Good As You (G.A.Y.). When confronted about the stealth addition of Hooper, Alan defensively admitted that he had, indeed, done so in the hope that Hooper would report on the email exchange and that the “good and decent people” on the list would be shamed into publicly exposing and rebuking others whom they may not know for offenses Chambers would not reveal.

I asked Chambers the following questions, which he refused to answer:

• Who are the people who deserve public rebuking and what specifically did they do to deserve to be rebuked?
• If he thought there was something “unrighteous” and “evil” (Chambers’ terms) going on, why didn’t he expose it himself and publicly rebuke the person or persons whom he believed deserved public rebuking?
• How did he justify betraying a trust and trying to publicly shame “good and decent” people for what he perceived as their failure to rebuke unnamed people for using words he viewed as inappropriate in unidentified contexts—actions, by the way, that he had not done?

No ministry should ever tell those who experience same-sex attraction or any other sin inclination that there’s a human way to eradicate all sinful impulses. If Exodus staff conveyed that unbiblical idea to those to whom they ministered, they erred.

Conversely no Christian should be told that God will not free them from same-sex attraction or that they will never experience heterosexual attraction, for those too are erroneous ideas.

Scripture tells us that God will free us from bondage to sin, but that full sanctification does not come in this life. We are promised that in this life, God will give us the power to resist our sinful impulses, which for most of us persist at least in attenuating strength.

God does not, however, give us permission to affirm our sinful impulses or act upon them. We are to pursue lives of holiness—which will never include homosexual relationships.

Since Exodus has abandoned orthodoxy, it is a good thing that it is shuttering its doors.  Fortunately, a far better ministry exists to fill a desperate need: Restored Hope Network

When we read about prior heresies, they seem like distant historical curiosities, but right now we are eyewitnesses to the birth and growth of a heresy in our lifetime. Let’s hope and pray that it’s soon relegated to the dustbin of heresies.

Click HERE TO SUPPORT Illinois Family Institute.

Struggling with homosexuality is a paradox, but embracing homosexuality is a contradiction.

Written by Michael Horton and reposted from ChristianityToday.com

Can Christians embrace a same-sex lifestyle and still be members in good standing in a Christian church?

I’ve been asked to comment on the controversy provoked by a recent interview in the Atlantic with Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International—an evangelical ministry founded to help Christians and non-Christians find freedom from the guilt and power of a same-sex lifestyle.

Christians may debate public policy, but in this interview, Chambers raises issues that are very clearly addressed in Scripture. Especially when we are dealing with human lives, daring to draw our counsel from God, we need to affirm the simplicity of biblical teaching on the subject while rejecting an over-simplifying of the issues involved.

The problem (sin and death) as well as the solution (redemption in Christ through the gospel) are simple, but hardly simplistic. In terms of sin, Scripture is quite clear about the condition (original sin—guilt, bondage, corruption leading to death) and the acts that arise from it. There are versions of the pro-gay and anti-gay agenda that assume a simplistic rather than simple understanding of the issue—at least from a biblical perspective. Reject it or embrace it: that’s the easy choice that makes for great sound-bites but ruins lives.

So let’s apply this “simple but not simplistic” formula to homosexuality.

Simple … 

First, the Bible’s teaching on the subject is simple in the sense of being straightforward and unambiguous. Does Scripture forbid homosexual behavior? Of course it does. Jesus and his apostles taught that God’s intention in marriage is for a man to leave his parents and join himself to one woman (Matt. 5:27-32; 19:3-6). Furthermore, the New Testament clearly teaches that homosexuality is immoral (Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; 1 Tim. 1:10) and that those who embrace a sexually immoral lifestyle will not inherit Christ’s kingdom (Gal. 5:19-21; 6:7-9; Eph 5:5; 1 Thes. 4:2-8). Isn’t it more complicated than that? After all, doesn’t Paul have in mind relationships based on temple prostitution or perhaps slavery, rather than committed relationships? No, the noun arsenokoitēs means “those who practice homosexuality.” It is an unusual compound, but it makes Paul’s point. And it’s not like prohibitions against eating shellfish or pork chops: part of the old covenant law that distinguished Israel visibly from the nations as a theocratic nation, which foreshadowed Christ and is now obsolete since the reality (Christ himself) has arrived.

As with the law, Scripture is also marvelously simple in proclaiming the gospel: Christ has won for us that victory over sin’s guilt, dominion—and ultimately, presence—that we were helpless to defeat.

… Without Being Simplistic

However, just at this point the complexity of both sin and redemption come into the picture. If sin were just a behavior, we could stop it. If we had done it a lot, we might need some help in stopping it, but eventually—if we tried hard enough—we could. However, sin is not just a behavior. Long before they made any choice about what to do with it, people were predisposed toward same-sex attractions. Affirming original sin, Christians don’t have trouble accepting this. We reject the Pelagian reduction of sin to an action that one can overcome with enough will-power. We are depraved (warped) in every respect: spiritually, morally, intellectually, volitionally, and physically. Long before genetics became a flourishing field, Christians have spoken about sin as an inherited condition. Furthermore, we can inherit specific sins—or at least tendencies—of our fathers and mothers. Then add to that the ways in which people are sinned against by the attitudes and behaviors of others, especially in childhood. So even before we actually decide to take that first drink, place that first bet, unleash our first punch, or fool around with our best friend, we are already caught up in the tangled web of solidarity in sin. At the same time, we are responsible for our choices, which reinforce or counter the specific sins toward which we are especially disposed.

There is no reason to think that Christians who struggle with these attractions are any less justified and renewed by God’s grace in Christ than are those who wrestle especially with greed or anger or gossip. The gospel frees us to confess our sins without fear of condemnation. Looking to Christ alone for our justification and holiness, we can finally declare war on our indwelling sin because we have peace with God.

If there is no biblical basis for greater condemnation, there is also no scriptural basis for greater laxity in God’s judgment of this sin. It is as unloving to hold out hope to those who embrace a homosexual lifestyle as it is to assure idolaters, murderers, adulterers, and thieves that they are safe and secure from all alarm. Nor will it do to say, “Well, we’re all idolaters, etc.,” since here—in 1 Corinthians 6—Paul’s concern is not to beat down legalistic self-righteousness but to warn professing Christians that they cannot worship Diana on Tuesday and Jesus on Sunday. Paul’s point is clear: For Gentiles, sexual immorality (including homosexuality, within proper social boundaries) is normal, but to take that view is to exclude oneself from the kingdom of Christ. A proud sinner defiantly ignoring the lordship of Christ while professing to embrace him as Savior is precisely what Paul says is impossible. These passages do not threaten believers who struggle with indwelling sin and fall into grievous sins (see Romans 7 for that category); rather, they threaten professing believers who do not agree with God about their sin.

At the end of his rope, a young man called me at the suggestion of a mutual friend. After a summer of discussing these questions and building new categories, with the support of a good church, he returned home. He told his parents that he was neither “gay” nor “straight.” Secure in Christ’s sufficient work, he was a Christian struggling with same-sex attraction yet who rejects the gay lifestyle. It was not a category for these folks. After his pastor informed him that he was one of those Gentiles whom Paul refers to as “given up” by God to their depraved desires, this friend and brother committed suicide. Superficial views of sin can be deadly, especially when the lethal weapon was a misuse of Scripture.

Yet for every simplistic condemnation there are 20 simplistic approvals. Given that only decades ago psychologists and psychiatrists were torturing LGBT patients in the name of science, it may have been on balance salutary when the American Psychological Association issued dire warnings against those who regard homosexuality as a “disorder.” However, psychology exceeds the boundaries of its competence when it imagines that taking a behavior off of the psychological disorder list means that it cannot be considered a disorder (or sin) in a moral and spiritual sense.

One problem of simplistic views of sin is that they always generate simplistic views of redemption. Scripture speaks of salvation in terms of a tension between the “already” of salvation and the “not-yet” that still awaits us. Unwilling to embrace the paradox of being “simultaneously justified and sinful,” we reject either justification or sanctification. However, a simplistic view of sin as acts requires as its solution nothing more than red-faced threats or smiling therapies for getting our act together. “Just stop doing it,” says the simplistic anti-gay position. “Just embrace it,” says the simplistic pro-gay position. There is even a version of the gospel today that is just as simplistic as the legalistic alternative. In many ways, it sounds like a thinly Christian veneer laid over a basically therapeutic message: “God loves you unconditionally” (with no mention of repentance, faith, or even Christ); “no matter what you do, God isn’t angry toward you,” and so forth. Anyone who imagines that how we live does not affect our relationship with God has not taken seriously the warnings and exhortations throughout the New Testament. Self-trust is not the only sin that distracts us from looking to Christ alone in faith.

Conformity to Christ’s image can only be driven by the gospel. And yet it is directed by the specific commands and exhortations of God’s word. How many times are we admonished to fleetemptations in Scripture? Sin is attractive largely because it is always a corruption of something good, true, and beautiful. One may have a greater propensity for inordinate eating, drinking, or workaholism than others. Yet it is the duty of Christian wisdom to resist situations that inflame our fallen tendency to pervert God’s good gifts. Lust is a perversion of sex and homosexuality is a perversion of philia—that profound love that men and women have for each other that is wonderfully different from the love of husband and wife.

A repentant Christian is one who agrees with God about the nature of sin and the need for redemption through Jesus Christ. Even when such a person falls, the face is set against the besetting sin and fixed on the faithful Savior at the Father’s right hand.

Refusing to agree with God about the nature of such behavior as sinful, those who embrace sexual immorality as a lifestyle reject the gospel. One cannot even seek forgiveness for something that one does not regard as sinful in the first place. Repentance means “change of mind.” It does not mean that one never struggles with that sin again; in fact, the struggleindicates repentance! Rather, it means that has decisively set his or her face against it. And we repent together, not just by ourselves.

“A Hospital for Sinners”—Really?

We like the idea of the church as a hospital for sinners-in-general; it’s specific illnesses that we’d rather not have to treat.

Often in our churches there is a tendency to idolize marriage and the family. From the New Testament perspective, the church as God’s family is more ultimate and intimate than our natural one. Yet if someone asks what our church has to offer families, most of us can think of something to say, while we might be at a loss for words if someone asks what our church has to offer single people—especially Christians struggling with same-sex attraction.

And yet, when it comes to cross-bearing, what greater testimony to Christ’s cross can there be than that a sinner would find his or her sufficiency in Christ to the extent that even sexual pleasure could be surrendered? Like other single Christians, freed from many domestic responsibilities, these brothers and sisters are able to invest more of their lives in the fellowship of saints. It changes the rest of the congregation, too, as others have to wrestle with their own responses and vulnerabilities. Children growing up recognize the seriousness of their own sin and the call to holiness; they also see firsthand just how true the gospel is on the ground, as they receive Communion together with brothers and sisters who have been forgiven much and therefore love much. This witness to Christ’s Cross expands beyond the local church. The unbelieving world may express hostility toward the traditional denunciations of homosexuality by churches, but it’s more difficult to mock people who have actually turned up their nose at the culture’s prized idol: the self with its unlimited range of identities. No, there is something more ultimate in reality and therefore more ultimately worth knowing than sexual pleasure.

It may sound like compassion, but it’s actually self-righteous pride to deny to some sinners that privilege of church membership and discipline that the rest of the body enjoys and from which it grows up into its head, Jesus Christ. We are all under church discipline: that is, the obligation to mutual accountability in the body of Christ. This is exercised, by Christ’s own appointment, through pastors and elders. Even in the extreme case of excommunication, where, after long-suffering admonitions and tearful pleas, unrepentant members are excluded from Communion in Christ’s body and blood, the goal even of this “tough love” is repentance and restoration to fellowship. Christians who fall are not under this threat. Rather, they are guided, encouraged, absolved, and admonished along with the rest of us. However, members who refuse the yoke of Christ are not Christians. It is one of the most obvious teachings in the New Testament that without repentance no one can be saved.

We dare not try to cut Christ in pieces, as if we could receive him deliverer from sin’s guilt but not from its dominion, or as Savior but not as Lord. Nor can we cut ourselves in pieces, severing our body from our soul—as if we could give our heart to Jesus and keep the title deed to our body. It’s precisely because our bodies are too important to the biblical drama that they cannot be exempted from biblical discipleship. As Paul put it:

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ … Flee from sexual immorality …You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor. 6:13-20).

Michael Horton is professor of theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary, California, and editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation magazine. He is author of many books, most recently, The Gospel Commission: Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples (Baker), the thesis of which will be the focus of a cover story in CT in the coming months.