Major Christian Book Publisher Celebrates Gay Pride Month, Retracts, Then Does Again.

by Daily Citizen Staff | June 16, 2022 | Sexuality
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Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company has been an absolute historical and theological powerhouse in the world of evangelical publishing for over a century. Founded in the American Dutch Reformed locale of Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1911, this house has long published some of the most important books in evangelical Christian thought, with few peers. They made their very early name publishing orthodox Calvinist theology. They were evangelicalism’s first successful academic publisher. Their backlist is impressive, a veritable who’s who of leading evangelical thought. C.S. Lewis, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, J. Gresham Machen, Carl. F. H. Henry, Jacques Ellul, Abraham Kuyper, Dorothy Sayers, F.F. Bruce, Richard John Neuhaus, Leslie Newbigin and William Lane Craig are just a few remarkable highlights.

This year Eerdmans is actively celebrating Gay Pride Month with a rainbow-themed post on their website entitled “Books to Read for Pride Month.”

No, these are not books to help Christians navigate the new deceptions being so widely propagated today on sex and gender. Rather, these recommended books affirm gay and trans ideology in various ways. And Eerdmans published each of them and has been busy doing so for some years now. And now, as Steven Wedgewood wrote recently at WORLD Opinions, “Eerdmans’ move to full-on LGBTQ+ advocacy is not truly surprising.” He is, unfortunately correct.

This is indeed a very sad development from a once great and profoundly important Christian publisher. Their self-stated rationale in their post is it’s time to “be willing to listen and seek to understand those in the LGBTQ+ community who are simply fighting to be seen and heard, cared for and loved.” One must honestly ask, “Is it really?” Rod Dreher rightly tweeted, “This is the same old ‘we just want to dialogue’ trap that has destroyed so many churches from within.”

Nothing was included in their pride recommended reading list from their great backlist of books on the hope of God’s truth and love on the matter. Just the gay affirming theological revisionism that has started popping up in the last 30 seconds of human history.

Eerdmans obviously faced significant push-back from their readers on the matter, and properly so. Moody Bible Institute’s Christopher Yuan tweeted,

On June 7, Eerdmans tweeted that they had taken down their website post celebrating gay theology “because the overwhelming vitriol was alarming, and we wanted to protect our authors.” They did not mention any actual threat to any of their authors, but nowadays articulated disagreement is taken as violence.

But then Eerdmans turned right around the retweeted the original link to the post. The publisher explains here,

Eerdmans defended their actions by citing some of the worst responses they received, as if those were the only responses they received. As the saying goes, ‘Haters gonna hate.” People say extremely mean and dumb things on social media. But why make that the story? Why did they not share some of the most thoughtful, reasoned responses from their clearly well-educated and theologically astute readers? In their effort to talk themselves out of the mess they created for themselves, Eerdmans explained in their twitter thread,

Certainly no one is accusing a historically Calvinist/Reformed publisher of being “the pope.” But is it not too much to ask for ask a Christian publisher to hold to foundational historic Christian orthodoxy?

Eerdmans has not published one single book that makes a clear biblical case for why same-sex sexuality and contemporary gender ideology are wrong. Not one. And by their own admission, are unlikely to do so anytime soon. So yes, they are not simply presenting “both settled and experimental positions.” They are trading singularly in the experimental on this topic. They are proud of this fact and admit as much,

Serious and very well-intentioned scholars like Robert Gagnon of Houston Baptist University wisely called Eerdmans out on this problematic emotion-laden sleight of hand,

That very deliberate move by one of the once great Christian publishing houses is extremely unfortunate and marks a great loss to the vibrancy of contemporary Christian theological thought.

Publishing books that directly and intentionally challenge the critically important and foundational Christian doctrine of male and female as God’s singular image and likeness in creation, as well as His first command to man and woman – procreate a family – cannot be called Christianity. It is a wholly different belief system.

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