Luther Rice Journal of Christian Studies, Summer 2021

121 | P a g e

Luther Rice Journal of Christian Studies

Lucy Peppiatt. Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women: Fresh Perspectives on Disputed Texts. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019. Pp. 184. $22 paperback.

Lucy Peppiatt is the Principal of Wesminster Theological Centre, professor of Christian doctrine and spiritual formation and author of several books primarily focused on women.

Peppiatt has written another reflective work to add to her repertoire. Composed of eight chapters, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women explores various topics about women and male dominance and attempts to debunk the belief of Scripture prescribed patriarchal order – all while still addressing how Scripture supports “the idea of women serving in all capacities alongside men.”1 Profoundly academic, Peppiatt writes in a manner that I found required one to step away, periodically, for the information to be absorbed. She focuses on redefining complementarian and egalitarian roles as she observes that “both are applied somewhat erroneously.” 2 Instead, Peppiatt finds it more useful to use labels that describe these roles, rather than what they are limited to or what they are permitted to be. Therefore, she chooses to use the terms hierarchicalists and mutualists. In the hierarchicalistic view “power and authority are not identified with the essence of a person’s being, “but rather their output or function.3 Mutualists,

Lucy Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women: Fresh Perspectives on Disputed Texts (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019), p. 5.

1

2

Ibid., p. 6.

3

Ibid., p. 7.