An evangelical Christian pastor and creator whose ebook on the theology of intercourse precipitated a furor on-line earlier this spring resigned Wednesday from the management of his Arizona megachurch.

“We have now discovered ourselves in an unimaginable scenario,” Joshua Butler wrote to members of Redemption Church in Tempe in saying his resignation. A duplicate of the letter was posted on social media. His picture and bio now not seem on the church’s web site.

Butler’s new ebook, Lovely Union, which argues that “God’s imaginative and prescient for intercourse” explains the which means of life, was controversial even earlier than it was launched in April.

In March, an excerpt of the ebook appeared on the web site of the influential church useful resource group The Gospel Coalition. Within the excerpt, titled “Intercourse Received’t Save You (However It Factors to the One Who Will),” Butler supplied repeated descriptions of sexual activity in religious phrases, most of them characterizing intercourse as a person bestowing a holy reward to a lady and evaluating that to the connection of Jesus and the church.

“She gladly receives the heat of his presence and accepts the sacrificial providing he bestows upon the altar inside her Most Holy Place,” wrote Butler. “Equally, the church embraces Christ in salvation, celebrating his arrival with pleasure and delight.”

The excerpt led to public outcry, claiming Butler’s writing contained not solely unhealthy theology however an oversexed view of faith centered on male pleasure. Whereas the excerpt did quote from the New Testomony’s Letter of Paul to the Ephesians, theology professor Beth Felker Jones, amongst others, argued Butler had missed the purpose of the passages he addressed.

“However the piece doesn’t dig into Ephesians, paying shut consideration to the textual content,” wrote Jones. “As a substitute, it turns right into a rhapsody over a really male-centered expertise of sexual activity.”

The Gospel Coalition eliminated the article days after it was posted, changing it with an apology and a observe that Butler had resigned as a fellow with the Keller Middle for Cultural Apologetics, a challenge of The Gospel Coalition, named for standard creator and retired pastor Tim Keller. Butler’s ties to the middle amplified the controversy over the ebook.

In his church resignation letter, Butler mentioned “the toll of this controversy on lots of our workers and leaders this month has been intense.” Butler and different elders on the church determined it might be greatest for him to step down, in accordance with the letter.

Resigning, he mentioned, would enable him to participate in “public conversations” about his ebook with out harming the church.

These public conversations have taken place at the same time as Butler contemplated his resignation. He continued to advertise the ebook on his private web site, publishing one other article associated to the ebook, titled “The Ethics of Contraception,” that additionally created controversy.

“A condom dams up the ‘river of life,’ stopping its life-giving waters from reaching the alternative shore,” Butler wrote. “With a diaphragm, a barrier is positioned on the most intimate level of contact, stopping a full reception of the reward inside the generative holy area of the womb.”

Butler additionally mentioned he could be revising a future printing of the ebook in gentle of suggestions he has obtained and he could be accessible to talk with church members who felt angered or damage due to the controversy.

Adblock take a look at (Why?)