Yes, I Signed the Nashville Statement

The Nashville Statement, recently published by a group of Biblically-oriented American pastors, scholars and Christian thought-leaders, is the most recent in a centuries-old line of statements, declarations, resolutions and councils. From time to time concerned believers gather to wrestle with thorny contemporary matters—issuing clear and authoritative proclamations to  help guide the church through difficult times.

The city-based identifier for such bulletins was established centuries ago at a meeting of Christian bishops in Nicea, which yielded The Nicene Creed in 325. After  a subsequent confab in Constantinople in 381, and Chalcedon in 451, the precedent was set.

In modernity we saw a response to the rise of National Socialism in Germany—the Barmen Declaration of 1934. Its signatories, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, resisted the move by many German churches to affiliate with the Nazi party, speaking with a laser-like prescience: "We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions."

During my own lifetime have come The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978), The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (1987), and the Manhattan Declaration on the Sanctity of Life & Freedom of Conscience (2009, released in the internet age, and which I also signed). In differing forms we have recently seen "councils" like The Moral Majority, Promise Keepers, The Gospel Coalition, Women of Faith, The Coalition of African American Pastors, The Museum of the Bible, and many other issue-answering endeavors to maintain a faithful Christian witness, Biblical literacy, and a "discerning [of] the times, because the days are evil." (Ephesians 5:16)

So it is not unheard of for Biblically-minded American church leaders to wade into controversy. As with all of these documents, The Nashville Statement (officially from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) is addressed to the church, but is aware of a wider audience, as stated in the preamble: "...in the hope of serving Christ’s church and witnessing publicly to the good purposes of God for human sexuality revealed in Christian Scripture, we offer the following affirmations and denials."

The thirteen articles themselves are mostly uncontroversial, at least for evangelical believers. If you take the Bible seriously, you'll be hard pressed to argue against these affirmations and denials. Christian psychologist and author Mark Yarhouse doesn't dispute the theology, but wonders about the Statement's "language," given that the labels and terms of identity and proclivity are still in flux. Those in the church who have publicly approved of homosexual behavior, transgender treatment, or have actually performed same-sex "marriages," feel themselves singled out by Article X. And well they should. Their high public profiles, and their divergence from Biblical norms may have endeared them to the media and popular culture, but their shifts away from historic Biblical belief and practice have opened a wound in the body of Christ.

That some people's feelings would be hurt by The Nashville Statement was all but inevitable. That breakaway churches and celebrated Christian mavericks would recant was all but impossible. That these evil days call for a choose-you-this-day-whom-you-will-serve ethos is all but certain. I've made my choice.