Although the new school policy does not require parental consent for any changes in gender recognition for their children while in school, John Fisher-Klein, executive director of the LGBT-advocating Attic Youth Center, made a “plea” to parents, imploring them to “create a space where your child can be authentically themselves.”

PHILADELPHIA (LifeSiteNews)—The Philadelphia School District bowed to Leftist gender ideology after the district superintendent announced that schools will begin allowing students to self-select their gender identity for school records, including a new “non-binary” option.
In a December 9 letter to parents, Superintendent William Hite said that, as part of the Philadelphia School District’s commitment “to providing safe and inclusive learning environments that support the emotional and mental health of all our students,” he was “excited to announce” a new policy whereby students will have the option to change their school record to reflect the notion that they are “non-binary.”
The policy, which took effect on Monday, affirms an alleged “right” of students who falsely consider themselves as “transgender and gender non-conforming…to select and identify as their preferred name and gender, even when that is different from what is printed on their birth certificate,” Hite’s letter explained.
The superintendent noted that students would have the opportunity to update their gender identification preference “without providing legal documentation or needing parent or guardian approval.” This preference will then be reflected on digital school learning systems, like Google Classroom, as well as on “assessments and report cards, etc.”
“This is an important step forward in our effort to become a more equitable and inclusive school district,” Hite commented.
However, state records would not be updated since Pennsylvania law requires a student’s records to accord with their legal birth certificate.
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I bring this story up today less because the potential plight of hungry New Yorkers warrants our consideration than because the way that Chick-fil-A has handled this and other controversies offers us a helpful reminder of what it looks like to stand for Christ in a way that honors our Lord without compromising our Christian principles. One of the most important, yet difficult, aspects of being a Christian is the idea that Jesus has called us to be in the world but not of the world (John 17:14–16). Yet, this approach to our interactions with the culture around us was not unique to Jesus. Rather, it was largely a continuation of the call God had given the Jews as far back as the exile.

Chick-fil-A is one of the most profitable companies in their industry, with the average non-mall-based franchise generating $8.7 million in sales each year. By comparison, the typical McDonald’s generates $3.7 million per year. Overall, it is the third-largest restaurant chain in the country, and all of this despite their famous stance of only being open six days a week.
Now a new bill in the New York State Assembly is trying to change that by forcing Chick-fil-A—or at least the locations along their highways—to stay open every day.
As the bill’s authors argue, “While there is nothing objectionable about a fast food restaurant closing on a particular day of the week, service areas dedicated to travelers is an inappropriate location for such a restaurant. Publicly owned service areas should use their space to maximally benefit the public. Allowing for retail space to go unused one seventh of the week or more is a disservice and unnecessary inconvenience to travelers who rely on these service areas.”
Assemblyman Tony Simone, who is one of the bill’s sponsors, put it a bit more bluntly: “You know, we get hungry when we’re traveling. We may not like our brother-in-law or sister-in-law’s cooking and wanna get a snack on Christmas Eve. . . . To find one of the restaurants closed on the thru-way is just not in the public good.”
Simone went on to add, “The Thruways are meant to serve New York travelers first. And I think it’s ridiculous that you’re able to close on Sunday—one of the busiest travel days of the week.”
While many would have responded to such charges in anger, to this point Chick-fil-A has seemed content to let the process play out and wait for the bill to force a conflict rather than to seek one out.
Fortunately, it looks as though it won’t come to that.
Chick-fil-A has already signed a thirty-three-year contract as part of a $450 million project to build twenty-seven service areas along the highway. Moreover, the project was funded without any toll or tax dollars, making it unclear how much say the state could actually have on which restaurants are placed in the stations and how those restaurants are run. And even if the bill becomes law, it stipulates that it would apply to future contracts rather than existing ones.
Couple those details with the fact that each of these locations includes other restaurants that are open seven days a week and it looks like Chick-fil-A is likely to remain closed on Sundays for the foreseeable future.
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The Law Amendment simply clarifies what our Constitution already calls for—close identification with the BF&M. Messengers have already proved their commitment to hold the line on the BF&M’s teaching on female pastors.

If you had told me ten years ago that female pastors would become an item of contention again in the Southern Baptist Convention, I probably would not have believed you. It was not very long ago that most of us were under the impression that the issue had been settled by the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 (BF&M), which says that the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. Nevertheless, here we are in 2024, and the issue is before us again.
The surprising thing this go round is that the debate appears to be an intra-complementarian conflagration as both sides at least claim to affirm the BF&M. Nevertheless, a profound difference exists among us about the propriety of cooperation with churches who have female pastors. To put it very bluntly, you have one set of complementarians who do not wish to cooperate with churches that have female pastors, and another set that do.
Enter Rob Collingsworth, who recently penned an essay for The Baptist Review arguing that Southern Baptists ought to be willing to cooperate with at least some churches that employ female pastors. For this reason, he is keen to persuade Southern Baptists to vote against the Law Amendment at our annual meeting this June in Indianapolis. If passed, the Law Amendment would clarify what the SBC Constitution already says—that cooperating churches should closely identify with the BF&M’s teaching about qualifications for pastors. Collingsworth believes that it would be bad for the Southern Baptist Convention to alienate churches who have female pastors but who would otherwise wish to contribute to our cooperative efforts. And for Collingsworth, the Law Amendment would alienate many such churches.
He gives five reasons for opposing the Law Amendment, each of which I believe to be problematic.
1. Should the SBC Cooperate with Churches that Employ Female Pastors?
First, he believes the SBC should be willing to cooperate with churches that give women the title pastor. As long as those female pastors don’t actually do the work of pastors, why should we split hairs over the title pastor? After all, the term pastor is “semantically challenged,” and we ought to recognize that some female pastors are nevertheless aligned with the “spirit” of the Bible’s teaching, if not the letter.
Collingsworth fails to recognize that the problem we are facing isn’t merely with churches that are confused about titles. I can think of two prominent examples right off the top of my head. One of the churches represented on the SBC’s Cooperation Committee employs a female executive pastor who preaches from time to time on Sunday mornings. Another church represented on the Cooperation Committee employs a variety of female pastors and has a senior pastor who publicly disagrees with the BF&M’s teaching about a male-only pastorate and who has publicly opposed the SBC’s removal of Saddleback. Neither of these situations represents mere confusion over nomenclature, but something far more substantive. Collingsworth doesn’t really explain the real scope of the problem right now in at least some cooperating churches. Voting down the Law Amendment would likely exacerbate that confusion, and yet that’s precisely what Collingsworth urges Southern Baptists to do.
2. Would the Law Amendment Exclude Churches that Subscribe to the Baptist Faith and Message?
Second, Collingsworth argues that the Law Amendment would exclude churches that hold to the BF&M. For him, while egalitarian churches with female pastors should be excluded from friendly cooperation, “complementarian” churches with female pastors should not. If churches are willing to give their money to a convention that does not share their views, why should the SBC refuse to cooperate with them?
The reason is because cooperating churches send messengers to the annual meeting. Messengers at the annual meeting vote on what the policies and priorities of the convention will be. How long will the SBC affirm the Bible’s teaching about a male-only pastorate if messengers increasingly disagree with what our confession says about a male-only pastorate? Cooperation is not merely about collecting money. It’s about messengers determining what our mission and priorities will be in our efforts to reach the nations for Christ. Do we want those messengers to agree with what our confession says about qualified male pastors? I think we do, and the Law Amendment helps to clarify our intention in this regard. Voting it down would send the opposite message.
3. Is the Law Amendment Out of Step with SBC History?
Third, Collingsworth argues that the Law Amendment would be out of step with how our Convention has operated for most of its history. The SBC was formed in 1849 but did not adopt the BF&M until 1925. And even then, it did not require cooperating churches to agree with the BF&M. It only required them to send in contributions. It wasn’t until 2015 that the convention adopted a requirement that cooperating churches “closely identify” with the BF&M. Nevertheless, Collingsworth contends that “closely identifies” allows for churches to contradict what the BF&M says on any given point, including what the BF&M says about the qualifications for pastors. He says that the chair of the SBC Executive Committee that proposed the “closely identifies” language confirmed to him privately that this is the case.
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