Editor's note: This post is the first in a four-part series on GenderPac that will run this week on Gender Blog.

A few weeks ago, Genderblog reported on efforts by numerous colleges and universities to develop gender-neutral restrooms to accommodate transgender students.

We also recently told readers about legislation that will confer a special protected status in the workplace upon those who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.

These cultural tsunamis are washing upon the shores in different spheres within the culture but both have a common advocate: the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition (GPAC), a well-financed organization that likely flies below the radar of many evangelical Christians.

Based in Washington, D.C., GPAC defines itself as a human rights organization that "promotes an understanding of the connection between discrimination based on gender stereotypes and sex, sexual orientation, age, race, and class."  Seeking the end of sinful discrimination based on age, race or class is a worthy goal, but only if it is pursued in a biblical way.

GPAC's website publicly reveals that its agenda is as clear as it is radical: the organization seeks to normalize homosexual and "transgender" lifestyles, while utterly eradicating all male-female gender distinctions. In GPAC's perfect world, it seems there would be neither male nor female.  Discrimination would be ended by undoing Genesis 1:27.

GPAC presses-through pro-homosexual/transgender and gender-neutral indoctrination-for gender and sexual identity reform in numerous sectors, both public and private, encompassing homes, major corporations, colleges, universities, and governmental agencies at local, state and national levels.

In 2005, GPAC published its three-year strategic plan with a stated purpose of "ensuring that every American can learn in the classroom, contribute in the workplace, and participate in the community regardless of whether they meet standards for masculinity and femininity" (italics added).

Behind noble language such as "workplace fairness" and positive goals such as eliminating "school bullying," GPAC promotes a pernicious agenda, one which rings with significant clarity in the opening paragraph of its strategic plan: "The truth is, very few of us really fit narrow gender norms. And most of us have experienced ostracism, ridicule, harassment, or even assault simply because we don't fit someone's ideal of masculinity or femininity.

"Gender stereotypes cause real, profound, and pervasive harm...They are deeply implicated in social problems that range from homophobia and sexism to transphobia and school bullying."

At CBMW, we are grieved that anyone would experience the harm of sinful ridicule, harassment, or even assault.  The power to change, however, comes from the Gospel of Jesus Christ transforming hearts and not through legislation or education that seeks to eradicate the distinction between manhood and womanhood.

GPAC was founded in 1995 and incorporated in 1999 as a 501c3 non-profit organization that, in 2005 had an annual budget of $800,000. The organization executes its strategic plan through three main programs that target every age group, from children to adults:

• Children As They Are Parenting Network. "From the moment they are born, children are treated differently based on their gender," the website reads. "Children As They Are helps parents and educators create environments that are safe for children to express themselves authentically and develop well-rounded interests - whether or not they're considered ‘right' for boys or girls." GPAC holds regular town hall meetings and seminars for parents to help their children "express their gender authentically."
• The GenderYouth Network "empowers youth leaders to build safer classrooms and communities where all youth can learn, grow and succeed, whether or not they conform to expectations for masculinity and femininity." Among the GPAC-sponsored programs that target teens is "Youth Pride Day," an event for "gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, Queer, and/or Questioning youth."
• Workplace Fairness.  A noble goal, when taken at face value, is undermined by a more pernicious intent, as recent GPAC "workplace fairness" events reveal. These efforts have included a training session for employees of the Connecticut Judicial Branch on gender and transitioning (presumably from one gender to another) in the workplace, GPAC's assisting of 170 members of the United States Congress in adopting a diversity statement that adds sexual orientation and gender identity/expression protections to their own hiring policies, and the organization's provision of on-site and distance consulting to many of the 230 major corporations that have added gender identity and expression protections to their EEO policies.

Additionally, GPAC sponsors the activities of other groups which seek to eradicate God-endowed gender distinctions and normalize gay and transgender lifestyles, including "Out & Equal in the Workplace Advocates," an organization GPAC calls "the pre-eminent national organization devoted to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in the workplace." GPAC also supports the National NOW Conference & Youth Feminist Leadership Institute, among others. 

Tomorrow, in part two of this series, Genderblog will examine some of GPAC's specific lobbying activities.

The oldest Baptist convention in Texas could make history next week with the election of the denomination's first female president

Delegates to the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), scheduled for Oct. 29-30 in Amarillo, will choose between two candidates, Joy Fenner, a former missionary to Japan and retired executive director-treasurer of Women's Missionary Union of Texas, and David Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church, Canyon, Texas. If Fenner is elected, she will become the BGCT's first female president.

Why would complementarians object to having a female serve as president of a state Baptist convention? After all, the BGCT is not a church. Wayne Grudem, in his massive volume Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Disputed Questions, answers this common objection well.

Insofar as a parachurch organization such as the BGCT functions in a manner resembling the church, it must follow the commands of Scripture that relate to those particular church-like functions.

Grudem writes: "Some New Testament commands do not apply to parachurch organizations not because they are not churches, but because they are not performing the activity mentioned in those commands. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood may never observe the Lord's Supper together, and therefore they will not have to follow the New Testament directions for the Lord's Supper. Whether CBMW is a church is not the crucial point. The crucial point is whether that organization is carrying out an activity for which the New Testament gives commands.

"We must continue to insist strongly that the New Testament applies to all Christians in all societies and all cultures and all situations—and in all parachurch organizations! Its commands are valid whenever Christians carry out the activities included in those commands. I cannot imagine the apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians, ‘Follow these instructions if you are doing this as part of the church in Corinth, but if you are doing this as part of a Christian organization outside of the church, then you do not have to obey my commands.' The New Testament never speaks that way, or hints at any such ‘escape' from being accountable to obey it."

The role of president of a Baptist convention mirrors that of a pastor to the degree that it should be filled by a man.

The BGCT rejects the Baptist Faith & Message 2000—the Southern Baptist Convention's confession of faith—which includes articles that affirm complementary gender roles in both the home and church. The BGCT began a leftward drift after leaders of its parent denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, began to reassert the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and theological orthodoxy in the early 1980s.

The BGCT formed in 1853 in Larissa, Texas, and became one of the strongest state Baptist conventions in the United States under the stalwart leadership of such Southern Baptist luminaries as B.H. Carroll, the founding president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and George W. Truett and W. A. Criswell, famous pastors who faithfully shepherded the historic First Baptist Church of Dallas for much of the 20^th century.

Should delegates make history and elect Joy Fenner to the BGCT's highest office, it will represent another step away from the stalwart biblical teaching of great Texas Baptist leaders such as Carroll, Truett and Criswell. Let us pray for the BGCT to return to biblical fidelity. 

By the same token, we must not forget to pray for the leaders of our own churches and denominations that they will continue steadfast in the teaching of God's Word and not be blown to and fro by the foul winds of contemporary culture.

It is still true.  For the last 20 years John Piper has served on the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and he has co-authored with Wayne Grudem the key complementarian book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.  His message on gender, grounded in the Word of God, remains unchanged, but by God's grace he continues to grow in the eloquence of his expression of these beautiful truths.  The latest example is from his recent address to pastors on some "Sweet Blessings of Masculine Christianity".  His definition of  "masculine Christianity" and 11 key points are reproduced here:

By "masculine Christianity," I mean (though words are inadequate):

The theology and the church and the mission are marked by over-arching male leadership and an ethos of tender-hearted strength and contrite courage and risk-taking decisiveness and readiness to sacrifice to protect and provide for the community-the feel of a great, majestic God making the men lovingly strong and the women intelligently secure.

In this ethos...

1. Men are freed to have feminine traits without being effeminate and women are freed to have masculine traits without being tomboys. (The most admirable women have masculine traits and the most admirable men have feminine traits: Lopsided masculinity and femininity are not as admirable.)

2. Men are more properly attracted to the Christian life when it does not appear that he must become effeminate to be a Christian. (Dominance of female leadership undermines the proper sense of a man's call to be a leader, protector, and provider.)

3. Women are more properly drawn to a Christian life that highlights the proper place of humble, strong, spiritual men in leadership. This more properly feels freeing and safe. It feels like a place where the men in her life might learn to take initiative without being domineering.

4. We are freed to celebrate strong, courageous women of God who love the biblical vision complementarity, without and sense of compromise. The men are so clearly strong and secure in their leadership that they are not threatened by women who are spiritually mature and effective in ministry.

5. Men are awakened to their responsibilities at home to lead the family and protect the family and provide for the family. A clear definition of manhood helps a man take responsibility.

6. Youth leaders and parents will catch a clearer definition of how to answer the question of a boy: "Daddy, what does it mean to grow up and be a man and not a woman?" And a clearer definition of how to answer the question of a girl: "Mommy, what does it mean to grow up and be a woman and not a man?"

7. The meaning of masculinity and femininity in singleness will be clearer and a lifetime of singleness without sexual intercourse will be more understandable and livable. (The definitions of masculinity and femininity in What's the Difference? are not marriage-specific.)

8. The corporate worship teams are not dominated by women and the songs chosen are not dominated by a one-sided feel of intimacy or majesty. The presence of masculine men and strong theology and music give the corporate worship a feel of strength that helps men discover and express the fullness of the emotions toward God that God calls for.

9. The God of the Bible will be more fully portrayed and known than where the tone is more feminine. The God of the Bible is overwhelmingly powerful and authoritative and often violent. He is Lord and King and Master and Sovereign and Father and Ruler. His tenderness and gentleness and patience shine in their beauty because of appearing in this dominant light. Women need an ethos of this kind so that they can relax and be more of their nurturing selves without fearing that they must work to create the ethos of God's grandeur lest it be lost because the men are not speaking it and modeling it.

10. Preaching is more readily prized. Preaching is "expository exultation"-a forceful acclamation of the greatness of God and a passionate appeal for full-blooded response to him. The fear of strong preaching is part of the effeminizing of the church, and the full range of the way God is and appears on the Bible is not known where preaching is simply casual and conversational.

11. A wartime mindset and a wartime lifestyle will feel more natural. And that is what the world needs from us-a readiness to lay our lives down for a great and global cause making all the sacrifices necessary to push the word of Christ into the most inhospitable places.

Tim Challies provides a helpful post on his blog to help us get our minds around the difficult concept of submission.  Here are a few key excerpts:

Strange though it may seem, submission is a good and beautiful and godly thing. The most perfect relationship in the world, the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, displays a perfect example of submission. The Son submits Himself to the Father. They are, to echo the Shorter Catechism, "the same in substance, equal in power and glory." Yet the Father demonstrates headship.

I have discussed this topic with several women and have been a little bit surprised by their reactions. It seems to me that women would be glad to know that the idea of submission precedes the fall. This shows us that the headship of the husband is not rooted in a punishment, and perhaps even an unfair punishment where woman was given the harsher penalty of having to submit, but is rooted in the very purpose and creation of mankind. Yet women have told me that they prefer to think that submission is a product of the Fall. Perhaps this shows just what a poor job the church has done in teaching this subject and what a poor job husbands have done in making submission joyful. Or maybe this is simply society echoing even in the church.

The ultimate reason a wife is to submit her husband may not have been clear to Adam and Eve. It was not clear to God's people until after the writing of the New Testament. The ultimate reason a wife is to submit to her husband is that the marriage relationship is to mirror that of Christ and His church. Just as Christ is head of the church and we submit to Him, in the same way man is the head of the family and the wife should submit to Him. A husband is to lead in the same was as Christ: lovingly, tenderly and always seeking the greatest good for his wife. A wife is to mirror her relationship with Christ in her relationship with her husband. She is to trust him, be loyal to him and help him. This can only be done in a relationship of humble, loving, godly submission.

When men lovingly lead their wives and when women respond in joyful submission, we see a beautiful echo of the relationship of the Father to the Son and we model the love of the Son for His bride. Submission may be unpopular, it may be a difficult word to say, but it is a concept that existed in a perfect world and is one that will endure for eternity.

In this generation we are experiencing a slow erosion of the definition of marriage.  Ultimately there are only two options: maintain the biblical definition that marriage is a spiritual union of one man and one woman or open the door to having "marriage" refer to every conceivable arrangement including same-sex, polygamistic, trans-species, and even trans-human.  Once the definition of marriage is unmoored from an unchanging anchor of truth, there is no limit to how far it will drift.  Consider:

On October 11 a British artificial intelligence researcher successfully defended a dissertation on human marriage to robots and will be awarded a doctorate degree from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.  "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners" by David Levy was based on 450 publications in fields such as psychology, sociology, robotics, materials science, artificial intelligence, and gender studies.

"My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," said Levy.  He conjectures that robots will become so human-like in appearance, function and personality that many people will fall in love with them, have sex with them and even marry them.

In 2006, Henrik Christensen, founder of the European Robotics Research Network, predicted that people will be having sex with robots within five years, and Levy thinks that's quite likely.  "It may sound a little weird, but it isn't," Levy said. "Love and sex with robots are inevitable."

"One hundred years ago, interracial marriage and same-sex marriages were illegal in the United States. Interracial marriage has been legal now for 50 years, and same-sex marriage is legal in some parts of the states," Levy said. "There has been this trend in marriage where each partner gets to make their own choice of who they want to be with."

"The question is not if this will happen, but when," Levy said. "I am convinced the answer is much earlier than you think."

Only Christians who are living as salt and light in this world can slow this erosion of truth. Complementarian and egalitarians together can agree that degrading the definition of marriage stands in opposition to the Word of God.  Even considering that a wife could be replaced by an animated object from the same electronic category as a laptop or cell phone is demeaning to women and dishonoring to God. My prayer is that believers would assert God's design for marriage with a confidence equal to that displayed by David Levy.