We've received many inquiries about obtaining copies of the NRCHS. They are presently sold out at Reformation Heritage Books. A revised edition has just been sent to the printer and copies should be available to order in a short time.
We are grateful for the positive reception of the catechism and requests for the catechism are being made from the Reformed and broader evangelical church world. Yesterday, we had an inquiry from the Rock Church in San Diego that would like to incorporate the catechism into their statement on human sexuality.
It is currently being translated into Spanish, Afrikaans, French, Portuguese, and Italian.
The revised edition will see some corrections to the footnotes, and in particular to three questions below. We've received a lot of good feedback and these few revisions help to better clarify a few points in the catechism.
Q&A 7 adds "due to the fall" in helping to explain why some people are born sexually indeterminate.
7. Q. But aren’t some people born sexually indeterminate? A. A small percentage of people are indeed born sexually indeterminate due to the fall, but such are, by definition, anomalies, and in medicine anomalies never negate objective categories of personhood. We may not use the existence of anomalies to change or redefine the creational order that God has established as good.
Q&A 31 sees significant revision as the question on pornography was asked objectively but answered subjectively. Hopefully this answer is clearer for the reader.
The first version:
31. Q. What is pornography?
A. Pornography is a lustful desire of the flesh, activated through the channel of the eye, through the looking upon or distributing of naked images of males and females for the purpose of sexual arousal.
The updated version:
31. Q. What is pornography?
A. Pornography is sexually explicit material produced to serve lustful desires of the flesh, activated through the channel of the eye, through the looking upon of naked images of males and females for the purpose of sexual arousal.
Finally, Q&A 35 adds the category of physical along with verbal and emotional abuse. This should have been in the first printing but now is present in the revised one.
Q. How should husbands seek to love and honor their wives?
A. Husbands should demonstrate sincere love to their wives, in reverence for Christ, through the exercise of: loyalty, kindness, understanding, tenderness, self-control, sexual purity, by all means avoiding verbal, emotional, and physical abuse or controlling behavior, and by providing godly leadership. Men ought to be a good example to their wives of the love that Christ has for his church.
We hope the catechism continues to be a blessing to parents in the home and for leaders in the church to help talk about the creational sexual ethic that God established as good. Please continue to watch RHB for the new printings.
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