On behalf of CBMW, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the 5,000 pastors who will be assembling over the next few days for the biannual Together for the Gospel conference. We share your commitments to the gospel, biblical authority, and biblical vision for manhood and womanhood. Our prayer is that more churches and denominations will adopt T4G's statement of beliefs which includes a strong statement on the complementary nature of men and women.

The conference is being held in Louisville, Kentucky, home of the main office of CBMW.  The trees are budding, flowers are blooming and God's creation is clearly signaling the beginning of spring here, so don't miss out on the opportunity to experience a taste of Louisville. (The Louisville Slugger Factory/Museum, conveniently located just a few blocks from the convention center, will show you how some of the trees are used later in the year.)

Please stop by the CBMW booth in the exhibit hall, because we would love to meet you personally and understand how the gender debate affects your ministry. To everyone visiting the booth we will be giving away a complimentary copy of Wayne Grudem and John Piper's book 50 Crucial Questions: An Overview of Concerns About Manhood and Womanhood. During the conference, we will also give away 500 copies of the recent book Women's Ministry in the Local Church by Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt. Gender bloggers David Kotter and Jeff Robinson as well as other CBMW staff members will be in the booth at various times throughout the conference to greet you. We would love hear how CMBW can better serve your church through our conference ministry and website resources.

If you are not able to attend T4G, we hope to meet you at other conferences in which CBMW will participate in the coming months.

P.S. We are sorry we missed you yesterday at Gender Blog. Severe storms in Dallas caused our main servers to lose power and we were off line all day.

In 2005, Zondervan launched its gender-neutral version of the NIV Bible-Today's New International Version (TNIV)-with a massive advertising campaign touting the new translation as the Bible that would make God's Word more accessible to Gen X and Gen Next.

More than three years later, the evangelical publishing giant faces an inescapable fact regarding the controversial TNIV: Christians, young and otherwise, aren't buying it.

While the NIV perennially ranks atop Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) sales lists, the TNIV is struggling to find an audience among evangelicals as a viable Bible translation. According to CBA's official figures, the TNIV dropped to 10^th in unit sales last December, and fell out of the top ten translations according to the February sales figures.

By comparison, Crossway's English Standard Version (ESV), a word-for-word translation which was published in 2001, is fourth in total units sold, trailing only the NIV, New King James and King James translations. See the chart below for February numbers.

Zondervan has aggressively marketed the TNIV as an updated version of the NIV-updated because of its use of "inclusive language." Many words referring to the male gender are rendered "gender neutral"-"they" instead of "he," "parent" instead of "father," "brothers and sisters" instead of "brothers," and so on.

Zondervan's publication of the gender-neutral version sparked no small controversy among evangelicals.

Wayne Grudem, Vern Poythress, and a host of other evangelical scholars voiced serious concerns over the gender-neutral approach to Bible translation. Several analyzed the TNIV in significant depth and showed numerous places where the use of culturally correct pronouns significantly alter the meaning of the text.  CBMW devoted the Fall 2005 issue of The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood to an examination of the TNIV.  

While sales have not met company expectations, Paul Caminiti, vice president and publisher of Bibles for Zondervan, said he remains optimistic about the future of the TNIV.

"Overall, we are optimistic about its future growth, but are not content with the current level of awareness and adoption," he told Christian Retailing. "Given our experience with the NIV, we knew from the very beginning that our aggressive goals for the TNIV would require an enduring vision and commitment to a long-term strategy."

Retailers are not as optimistic.

Doug Cunningham, manager of New Creation in Charlotte, N.C., told Christian Retailing that sales of the gender-inclusive NIV have been "pretty unimpressive."

"We hardly even stock that version any longer, having sent most of them back and declining to bring in most of the newer (versions of the TNIV) simply based on past sales history of the translation," he said.

Similarly, Ruth Ann Savage, co-owner of Jack's Religious Gift Shop in Salisbury, Md., said her store sells very few copies of the TNIV.

In conjunction with televangelist Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral, Zondervan will release the TNIV Power for Life Bible in May, the first such licensing of the new translation to an outside publisher. Caminiti said he hopes for similar opportunities for the TNIV with other publishers "who complement Zondervan's publishing strategies and initiatives."

(Unit Sales in U.S. and Canada Christian Retail Stores)

1. New International Version (various publishers)
2. King James Version (various)
3. New King James Version (various)
4. English Standard Version (Crossway)
5. New Living Translation (Tyndale)
6. Reina Valera 1960 (various)
7. Holman Christian Standard Bible (B&H)
8. The Message (Eugene Peterson, NavPress)
9. New American Standard Bible update (various)
10. International Children's Bible (Thomas Nelson)

[Kalli Amstutz is a contributor to the Gender Matters blog, the new voice of the Gender Matters Task Force at Northwestern College in Minnesota.  The GMTF is made up of college students who live out and promote the traditional biblical view of gender roles in the home and church. - David Kotter]

In a culture that celebrates freedom, limitations are not warmly welcomed. Telling a child he cannot stay up past nine evokes anger similar to the woman who is told she cannot do everything a man can.

In her book Let Me Be a Woman, Elisabeth Elliot points out, "There are those to whom being a woman is nothing more than an inconvenience, to be suffered because it is unavoidable and to be ignored if at all possible. Their lives are spent pining to be something else."

We naturally prefer to be in control and determine who we are and what we do. When another puts limitations upon us we feel belittled and trapped. But what if those limitations were put upon us by the One who created us? Our Creator God designed with purpose, though to us it may at times appear an inconvenience.

Elisabeth Elliot explains:

Every creature of God is given something that could be called an inconvenience, I suppose, depending on one's perspective. The elephant and the mouse might each complain about his size, the turtle about his shell, the bird about the weight of his wings. But elephants are not called upon to run behind wainscots, mice will not be found "pacing along as though they have an appointment at the end of the world," turtles have no need to fly nor birds to creep. The special gift and ability of each creature defines its special limitations. And as the bird easily comes to terms with the necessity of bearing wings when it finds that it is, in fact, the wings that bear the bird - up, away from the world, into the sky, into freedom - so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts, her special calling - wings, in fact, which bear her up into perfect freedom, into the will of God.

When we align ourselves with God's design we must accept certain limitations. I am not a man. As simple as that sounds, the implications are real and if I try to live like a man I will be greatly disappointed. We are only satisfied when we live in such a way that fulfills our purpose. Only then will the Creator be glorified and will we be truly free.

[Owen Strachan is a regular contributor to Gender Blog, a doctoral student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in historical theology, a newlywed husband, and blogger at Consumed. - David Kotter]

A recent Salvo Magazine piece by S. T. Karnick, "Girly Men: The Media's Attack on Masculinity", lays out three stereotypical masculine images found in contemporary culture. Here's Karnick's distillation of the roles currently available to men in American society:

"(T)he war against boys seems to have created three main character patterns for the adult male of our time: sensitive guys who want to please women; weenies and dorks who want only to be left alone to drink beer and play video games with their dork buddies; and thugs who, in rebellion against their unnatural education, are perpetually concerned with proving their toughness through increasingly loutish behavior. There are, of course, examples of decent, positively masculine males in the culture, but they are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the products of educational and cultural feminization."

It is interesting to note that each of these unhelpful characters contains an element of goodness, as perversions of the original type often do. The sensitive man, after all, is something of a reaction to the cold, emotionless "Lone Ranger" type of man popularized by actors like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. The sensitive man represents a cultural attempt, then, to correct John Wayne masculinity. Where his father or grandfather never wept, never talked much, never said "I love you", the sensitive male weeps readily, chatters away, and reassures anyone within earshot of his love. In seeking an emotionally alive masculinity the sensitive man seems to have sped past "properly balanced emotional life" and landed in the once-foreign land of "traditionally feminine ways of speaking and feeling". The Christian man stands ready to lend him his roadmap.

However off-base this quest may be, at least the sensitive man seeks to go somewhere. The same can not be said for our goofball. Like other useful items strewn around his room in his parent's home, he could not find a sense of self-control, of shame, if offered a cash reward for it. Where men used to define themselves by taking responsibility, by making money, seeking a wife, fathering children, and so on, various factors changed all this.  The rise of collegiate culture unimpeded by institutional Christianity, the booming of anonymous cities that allowed for familial escape, and the rise of the playboy bachelor in the post-World War Two era mixed with the rebellious 1960s to explode responsible masculinity.  With that, the man-child was born, and so too a major missiological challenge.

The third group--the thugs--represents a reaction against each of these stereotypes. More accurately, perhaps, this third group is a subgroup of the first. This type of man prizes action, not talk, unlike both the sensitive man and the goofball. This is the kind of man who exalts deeds, not words, who would rather talk with his fists than his mouth. Though all three of these perversions of true manhood have existed throughout human history, this type has caused the most damage, at least physically. Your conquerors, your tyrants, your bullies from high school? They fit here. Driven by pride, motivated by glory and the opinions of others, this group, when unrestrained, possesses the power to cause great harm to others.

If many contemporary men fall into these three rather frightening categories, how are local churches to respond? First, by affirming the element of goodness found in each type. Men of the Bible are by no means silent or unemotional. The father of the prodigal son, for example, weeps openly and deservedly when his son returns home (see Luke 15:11-32). Christ Himself wept when He heard of Lazarus's death (John 11:35). Christ was compassionate, tender, gentle, and merciful throughout the course of His ministry. So we ought to be a balance of strength and gentleness, not either/or. On the other hand, it's a bit difficult to find the goodness in the goofball, frankly. With that said, we can appreciate the way in which this type lives honestly and often happily, enjoying the arts, sports, music, and more. Perhaps this cultural pattern of manhood shows us that men do not need to be grim and dour to be truly masculine. As with sensitivity, we need to work hard to strike a balance here, but we can surely recognize that the Bible affirms a balanced, happy life--see Ecclesiastes for more on that.  The Christian man ought to be responsible, but he ought also to be happy. 

The thug, for his part, shows us that men were not meant to be wimps. We were meant to be strong, to the best of our capability, and to use that strength for the betterment of others. The patriarchs worked the land, and they worked it hard, in order to provide for their families. Death was a constant threat--to worship in Israel in many ages was to worship with a sword on the belt. Christ Himself stormed through the temple, turning over tables, scourging the wicked. In His second coming, He will arrive as the Warrior-King. Therefore, as men, we should realize that to be a man is to harness one's natural strength, energy, and agency for the betterment of others, namely, one's family, church, and brothers and sisters.

We see, then, that there is a fourth model: the redeemed leader, whose type we derive from the Bible.  In a sense, this fourth model is a composite of the earlier three types--or rather, the three types are all realized in Christ, the God-man, whose model is elaborated in the Bible.  We must not let our children learn what it is to be a man--or a woman, of course!--from MTV, or Hollywood, or the NBA. No, we must embody robust, godly masculinity in our churches. This starts with a pastor who embodies biblical manhood and who then teaches men to do the same. A full commitment must be made to teaching men the rudiments of biblical masculinity--Proverbs, the Gospels, 2 Timothy come to mind here.

Churches must thus teach men not to be feminine in matters of communication and emotion, not to shirk responsibility and maturity, not to mistreat and abuse others, but to emulate the Savior. When churches train men in this way, fathers will trains their sons, leading to sea changes in Christian culture. The pastor is important, but he trains only one family directly. Every Christian church, however, has many fathers, and it is up to them in an earthly sense to determine whether they will raise men of Christ or men of culture. It is not too much to say that all of the above, all of the preceding discussion, rises or falls with the simple matter of what a father teaches his family, what models he holds up before them, and how he lives out that teaching. 

Will our boys be wimps, goofballs, thugs--or will they be a fourth type: Christian leaders according to the dictates of Scripture? The answer depends not on what the culture says, not on what it parades before us on television, but on the conception of man that we teach, that we exalt, and that we embody before the eyes that are always watching, the hearts that are always taking shape and form.

"Gender-inclusiveness" as a term has finally gotten around to including heterosexuals on college campuses in Oregon, but in a way that is anything but positive.

OregonLive.com reported last week that colleges and universities across that Northwestern state are beginning to allow virtually anyone to room together on campus.

This might indeed be accurately termed "the final frontier" in college dorm arrangements that started with coed dorm buildings, followed by coed dorm floors, followed by coed bathrooms, and finally coed dorm rooms.  In addition, institutions of higher learning in Oregon have already followed a nationwide trend by developing special campus housing arrangements for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

Many schools in Oregon and in other states already allow for opposite-gender roommates who, as the paper describes it, "do not feel comfortable in a traditional roommate arrangement." The Oregonian accurately describes the move as "breaking the last gender barrier."

A sizable group of students lobbied in favor of the inclusion of heterosexual roomies for the sake of equality-felt it was unfair to allow gay and lesbian couples to live together while shutting out heterosexual couples. Some among them suggest that many young men and women will desire to room together while keeping a strictly platonic relationship.

"It's really just about allowing students to choose who they are most comfortable living with," student Jenne Schmidt said.

"It's just about everyone being equal in who you get to choose to live with," said Michael Reed, associate dean of residence at Reed College.

One factor for which the schools are bracing is the common reality that heterosexual students date for a time and then break up; it is a virtual certainty that many students who are in a dating relationship will room together and then break off the romantic relationship. Bob Hawkinson, dean of campus life at Williamette University sounds a bit more skittish than most when considering this particular implication. 

"People of this age simply do break up a lot," he said. "This is just asking for more trouble than we want to take on."

Trouble indeed.

Besides being guilty of backward reasoning (reasoning from gay, lesbian, bisexual, "transgender" rights to heterosexual rights), this move in Oregon is troubling for the faulty presupposition that undergirds it: men and women are really not all that different. School officials seem to be assuming that a young man and young women sharing the same living space is really no different than two guys or two girls rooming together.

There are certainly profound biblical reasons to be made in favor of keeping unmarried men and women in separate living quarters, but underlying them is one fundamental, self-evident reality: men and women are different. This truth alone is reason enough to keep the more traditional college living arrangements in place.

But the dilemma runs deeper than mere biological differences: when men and women live together, even if their aim is to remain platonic, these differences are in grave danger of manifesting themselves in sinful ways. This is particularly true given the twin realities of a hyper-sexualized culture and the presence of sexual desires that seem particularly robust in the late teen/early adult years.