Priscilla Papers 34.3 | Summer 2020

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riscilla

The academic journal of

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apers Vol 34, No 3 | Summer 2020

CBE International

Conference Papers

3 Christian and Islamic

Feminists in Dialogue Mimi Haddad

10 Raising Up Allies: A

Standardized Pathway for Developing Men into Allies to Women Rob Dixon

15 Engaging Women with

a Suffering Sophia: Prospects and Pitfalls for Evangelicals Cristina Richie

21 Yin-Yang and the Spirit

Poured Out on All Flesh: An Evangelical Egalitarian East-West Dialogue on Gender and Race

Amos Yong

28 Book Review

The Gospel According to Eve: A History of Women’s Interpretation, by Amanda W. Benckhuysen Allison Quient

29 Book Review

Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts, by Andrew Bartlett

Laura Spicer Martin

Priscilla and Aquila instructed Apollos more perfectly in the way of the Lord. (Acts 18:26)

I Tertius . . .

The first purpose of Priscilla Papers is “to provide scholarship on topics related to a biblical view of equality and justice for women in the home, church, and world.” To provide such scholarship, we must first find it. One key way that we search for scholarship is to listen to and interact with scholars at conferences.

Academic and professional conferences are seedbeds for journal articles. As an example, Priscilla Papers published my article, “What Can We Say About Phoebe?” in 2011 (before I became the editor). Prior to submitting that article for publication, however, I had presented it at two academic gatherings. Though improving the paper based on feedback from conference attendees created more work for me, it was an important part of the process. This scenario is not unique. Conference papers are considered works in progress. In fact, the sessions in which they are read are often called “study groups,” a designation reflecting the non-final nature of the scholarship being presented.

Priscilla Papers has often been blessed to be on the receiving end of processes such as the one described above.

This is specifically the case with the current issue. All of the articles in the following pages were presented at conferences and then revised before being submitted for publication.

One of the articles, by Rob Dixon, was presented as a workshop in Houston, Texas, at CBE’s 2019 annual

conference. CBE’s next major conference is in London on August 11-14, 2021 (see https://cbeinternational.org/ content/2020-london-international-conference).

The other three articles, by Mimi Haddad, Cristina Richie, and Amos Yong, were presented in San Diego, California, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. Certain CBE leaders, especially President Mimi Haddad, have been instrumental in founding and sustaining a study group within the Evangelical Theological Society called “Evangelicals and Gender.” The 2019 theme for this study group was “Gender and Race,” and you will therefore explore aspects of that theme as you read these articles.

While much scholarship is disseminated and developed at conferences, books offer a more accessible means of encountering egalitarian scholarship. In this issue of Priscilla Papers, you will read reviews of The Gospel According to Eve (by Amanda Benckhuysen, reviewed by Allison Quient) and Men and Women in Christ (by Andrew Bartlett, reviewed by Laura Spicer Martin). Though Priscilla Papers can only review a few select resources, CBE’s online bookstore provides an up-to-date repository of egalitarian books (see https:// cbeinternational.christianbook.com).

We strive to provide scholarship that is sound, useful, engaging, and challenging. And we are grateful to the many scholars who partner with us in this quest.

. . . greet you in the Lord.

DISCLAIMER: Final selection of all material published by CBE International in Priscilla Papers is entirely up to the discretion of the publisher, editor, and peer reviewers.

Please note that each author is solely legally responsible for the content and the accuracy of facts, citations, references, and quotations rendered and properly attributed in the article appearing under his or her name. Neither CBE, nor the editor, nor the editorial team is responsible or legally liable for any content or any statements made by any author, but the legal responsibility is solely that author’s once an article appears in print in Priscilla Papers.

Editor: Jeff Miller Associate Editor / Graphic Designer: Theresa Garbe President / Publisher: Mimi Haddad President Emerita: Catherine Clark Kroeger† Consulting Editor: William David Spencer Peer Review Team: Joshua Barron, Lynn H. Cohick, Havilah Dharamraj, Tim Foster, Nijay Gupta, Susan Howell, Jamin Hübner, Loretta Hunnicutt, Kyong-Jin Lee, Esau McCaulley, Adam Omelianchuk, Chuck Pitts, Marion Taylor, Karen Strand Winslow On the Cover: Amos Yong, courtesy of Fuller Theological Seminary Priscilla Papers is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®), http://www.atla.com, in the Christian Periodical Index (CPI), in New Testament Abstracts (NTA), and in Religious and Theological Abstracts (R&TA), as well as by CBE itself. Priscilla Papers is licensed with EBSCO’s fulltext informational library products. Full-text collections of Priscilla Papers are available through EBSCO Host’s Religion and Philosophy Collection, Galaxie Software’s Theological Journals collection, and Logos Bible Software. Priscilla Papers is a member publication of the American Association of Publishers.

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Priscilla Papers (issn 0898–753x) is published quarterly by CBE International 122 W Franklin Avenue, Suite 218, Minneapolis, MN 55404–2451 www.cbeinternational.org | 612–872–6898 © CBE International, 2020.

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Christian and Islamic Feminists in Dialogue Mimi Haddad

The face of abuse, hunger, disease, illiteracy, and poverty is nearly always female. Robert Seiple, former president of World Vision, wrote, “From birth to the grave, throughout much of our allegedly ‘modern’ world, violence marks the lives of those born girls.”1 According to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women,2 Arab women often encounter the steepest climb to shared leadership and authority worldwide. However, as the power differential balances between males and females, the more girls and women, boys and men flourish.3 Islamic feminists have been denied formal positions of leadership, and their strategies for overcoming male dominance thus represent opportunities for dialogue for feminists worldwide.

This article will consider strategies shared by Islamic and Christian feminists in exposing and upending biased historical and exegetical methodologies that further attitudes, laws, and social practices that marginalize and oppress women. Denied empathy, shared authority, accountability, and access to roles traditionally held by men, Islamic and Christian feminists address their efforts at the four horse riders of abusive systems identified by psychologist John Pryor:4 • Power, dominance, and authoritarianism • Enforcing gender roles • Lack of empathy • Environments that foster impunity We will consider each of these in what follows.

Power, Dominance, and Authoritarianism Feminists, both Christian and Islamic, resist male authority and dominance through two key objectives: 1. Recovering women’s achievements and leadership throughout history and, 2.

Preserving the Creator-creature divide theologically.

Recovering Women’s Contributions throughout History George Orwell observed, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”5 First-wave Christian feminists prioritized historical research on women leaders of the faith. Julia Kavanagh (1824–1877) published Women of Christianity in 1852; A. J. Gordon (1836–1895) published The Ministry of Women in 1894, and Katharine Bushnell (1855–1946) published God’s Word to Women in 1921.

Islamic feminists revived the history of women’s leadership in “pre-modern Muslim societies.”6 Women’s lost history is now part of a “wider scholarly movement.”7 Through this effort, historians demonstrate how Islamic women taught publicly, trained imams, and had many disciples and students throughout the 1400s and 1500s.8 Within Islamic communities, women’s literary works reveal the public voice women scholars had on “various religious and scholarly issues.”9 Yet, this history is not widely rehearsed. Rather, it has suffered intentional neglect,

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particularly as it concerned women’s religious leadership in the sacred texts.

Likewise, Christian feminists reclaim the examples of biblical women often suppressed by complementarian Christians.10 This effort includes both historical and biblical research demonstrating the significance of the two OT books honoring women’s leadership, like Esther, who publicly challenged her husband the king (Esth 5:1–2), and Ruth, who secured the support of her kinsman-redeemer (Ruth 3:3–14). Though an outsider like Ruth, the Syrophoenician woman gained the ultimate kinsmanredeemer in the person of Christ (Mark 7:24–30). Christian feminists also show the substantial way women surpassed their husbands as business leaders (like the Prov 31 woman), in military maneuverings (like Jael in Judg 4), and in political negotiations (like Abigail in 1 Sam 25). Similarly, women prophets spoke on God’s behalf to Israel, and especially to their priests and kings.11 Sarah acted on her own initiative, and her husband obeyed her (Gen 16:2, 21:12). Rebekah (Gen 27) and Rachel (Gen 30:1–16) led their husbands. The midwives—Shiphrah and Puah—disobeyed their king to save Hebrew babies (Exod 1:8–22).

Breaking ranks with social and theological patriarchy, Jesus locates women’s value not in their cultural roles but in their response to God’s revelation, which becomes the standard for every member of the New Covenant—male and female (Luke 11:27–28). Unlike the rabbis of his day, Jesus mentored women as disciples (Luke 10:38–42), equipping them as evangelists, teachers, apostles, and martyrs. Thus, Jesus first disclosed his messianic mission in the longest conversation recorded in Scripture with the Samaritan woman (John 4:4–26). Jesus enlists her as an evangelist to a despised people and her witness brings others to faith (John 4:39). Stunningly, Jesus welcomed the priestly anointing of a woman at the Last Supper. She prepared Jesus the Christ, Israel’s greatest king, for a death that constitutes the crowning achievement of all kings. It was the greatest priestly anointing in all of Israel’s history, a task initiated by a woman (Mark 14:3–9).

Christian feminists recognize women leaders at the highest levels throughout the NT.12 Luke and Paul celebrate women like Phoebe the deacon and church leader (Rom 16:1–2), Priscilla the church planter, leader (Rom 16:3–5), and teacher (Acts 18:26), Junia the apostle13 (Rom 16:7), and other women evangelists and house church leaders—Lydia (Acts 16:13–14, 40), Apphia (Phlm 1:1–2), Nympha (Col 4:15), and Chloe (1 Cor 1:11). Paul teaches mutuality between male and female (1 Cor 7:3–4, Eph 5:21), while opposing dominance (1 Tim 2:11–12). A robust knowledge of women’s biblical leadership is a strong defense against demeaning women ontologically.

Preserving the Creator-Creature Divide Ascribing innate and superior moral qualities to men weakens the Creator-creature distinction just as it furthers men’s critique

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of and authority over women. As the feminist Mary Daly noted, “If God is male, then the male is God.”14 Therefore, fundamental to Islamic and Christian feminism is a concerted effort to preserve the Creator-creature divide. Omaima AbouBakr, a prominent Islamic feminist, vigorously asserts that humans “are not supposed to be put on an equal footing with the Creator.”15 Therefore, man should not be obeyed by woman because “Creator and creature should not achieve equal status in terms of domination and submission.”16 Further, men, as creatures, must not eclipse God as the absolute Provider.

According to Abou-Bakr, “Islam does not bestow a man with authority over a woman.”17 God does grant individual men with authority provided that they possess the needed gifts and use their gifts responsibly. In this way, Abou-Bakr rejects maleness as an ontological category superior to femaleness. The privilege of authority is permitted to individuals with superior gifts that are exercised conscientiously.

To legitimize male authority, complementarian Christians also blur the Creator-creature divide by arguing that maleness is part of God’s being.18 Challenging the perception that Christianity “has a masculine feel,” Christian feminists observe that Jesus was male, but it was his humanness, not his sex, that was integral to his salvific work. The early Christians did not absolutize the maleness of Christ because they wished to see his sacrifice as universal, available for all.19 Jesus, as the Son, prayed to God as Father because it was fathers who bestowed inheritance, identity, and protection to children in Christ’s culture.20 Further, Scripture forbids the worship of idols formed as man, woman, or in any creaturely likeness (Deut 4:15b–17) because God is Spirit (John 4:24). What is more, Scripture includes feminine metaphors to describe God’s attributes.21 Though Jesus called twelve male disciples, more importantly the Twelve were Jewish, demonstrating God’s faithfulness to Israel (the twelve disciples symbolize the twelve tribes). Yet, the twelve male disciples often fail where Christ’s female disciples succeed.22 In this way, Scripture honors the moral and spiritual leadership of females.23

Islamic culture became more patriarchal in reaction to western colonialism, Abou-Bakr observed that:

Enforcing Gender Roles

Even today, the prominent evangelical, Mark Driscoll (b. 1970) writes:

Fundamental to the logic of gendered roles is a gender essentialism24 that minimizes women ontologically in order to marginalize them from public spheres. Once established, gender essentialism compels gendered roles that are then assessed and controlled by men. In dethroning essentialist ideologies, Islamic feminists expose and critique scholars who presume that “men are better in ‘reason, resoluteness, determination, strength . . .’”25 to corroborate with gender essentialist scientific data in moving women to private spaces of subservience and subjugation to male discipline.26 The first to make this move was Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), insisting that wives should live under the rule or leadership of their husbands, “a condition that followed the requirements of human nature.”27 He was the first exegete to “adapt a relevant biblical reference when he stated that ‘a man is like the head, and the woman is the body’, and it is ‘no shame for a human being to have his head better than his hand.’”28 As 4 • Priscilla Papers

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[T]wentieth-century exegetes continued . . . the division of male and female psychological natures, one disposed to rational and abstract thinking, the other emotional, nurturing and fixated on details. This “natural” organization of human nature led to a corresponding God-ordained division of private domesticity versus public work.29 Gender essentialist assumptions, positioning man’s nature as superior to woman’s, are a persistent theme for Christian thought leaders throughout history. Irenaeus (AD 130–202) said, “Both nature and the law place the woman in a subordinate condition to the man.”30 Chrysostom (AD 347–407) said, “The woman taught once, and ruined all. On this account . . . let her not teach . . . for the sex is weak and fickle. . . .”31 Augustine (AD 354–430) continued this tradition: “Nor can it be doubted, that it is more consonant with the order of nature that men should bear rule over women, than women over men.”32 John Calvin (1509–1564), in his commentary on 1 Timothy, wrote that women are “not to assume authority over the man . . . it is not permitted by their condition.”33 John Knox (1514–1572) said, “Nature, I say, does paint [women] forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish; and experience has declared them to be inconstant, variable, cruel. . . . Since flesh is subordinate to spirit, a woman’s place is beneath man’s.”34 Charles Hodge (1797–1878) argued: [T]he husband is head of the wife. . . . The ground of the obligation, therefore, as it exists in nature is the eminency of the husband. . . . He is larger, stronger, bolder; has more of those mental and moral qualities which are required in a leader. This is just as plain from history as that iron is heavier than water . . . the man was not made out of the woman, but the woman out of the man; neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. This superiority of the man, in the respects mentioned, thus taught in Scripture, founded in nature, and proved by all experience. . . .35 [W]hen it comes to leading in the church, women are unfit because they are more gullible and easier to deceive than men. . . . [W]omen who fail to trust [Paul’s] instruction . . . are much like their mother Eve. . . . Before you get all emotional like a woman in hearing this, please consider the content of the women’s magazines at your local grocery store that encourage liberated women in our day to watch porno with their boyfriends, master oral sex for men who have no intention of marrying them . . . and ask yourself if it doesn’t look like the Serpent is still trolling the garden and that the daughters of Eve aren’t gullible in pronouncing progress, liberation, and equality.36 For each, the presumed inferiority of women represents a metaphysical reality with subsequent moral and teleological

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consequences. When male and female constitute distinct ontological categories, morality is nearly always the domain of men who rightly, then, exercise control of their inferiors—women.

Abou-Bakr also observed that if men are more godlike, they must logically evaluate and control women. Further, in the unilateral critique of women “as objects of study rather than producers and interpreters of religious meaning,”37 morality is embodied as male. Men, therefore, control the theological and moral discourse to overemphasize “the roles, rights and duties of ‘Muslim woman,’”38 which overshadows the “roles and responsibilities of men within the same Islamic value system.”39 When failures arise, women alone are blamed, not men. She writes, This perception of the essential male character (ideal in mind and body) marks a particular self-imaging that is integrated into the interpretation of the divine/ Qur’anic message and grounded in modern pseudoscientific “biologism.” . . . This ideal state of masculinity explains the tendency in modern exegesis, in particular, to blame men less while holding women responsible for all the problems of family and society. The assumed status as the normative gender provides men with the justification for prescribing roles and conduct for the other (imperfect) gender. Headship and authority are basic male qualities, according to this “innate division” (al-taqsim al-fitri) of roles between private and public, between home and office.40 Given the determinism intrinsic to gender essentialism, how can men or women be held morally responsible if behavior is hardwired? If men are programed by their biology to be more godlike, and women by virtue of their biology are flawed and fallible, gender essentialism therefore relinquishes moral agency in both men and women alike.41 Even so, Islamic feminist discourse exposes both the privileges of manhood coupled with the abuses perpetrated by men that are frequently ignored.42 Consequently, the “character of a ‘Muslim’ man has not been rigidly defined (strait-jacketed, so to speak) in the same manner as that of the ‘Muslim’ woman.”43 Given the imbalance of power orchestrated by gender essentialists, it is a misperception to view Islamic and Christian feminism as struggles for power. Rather, Islamic feminists aim at sharing power and responsibilities between men and women.44 For Christian feminists, male rule and dominance is a consequence of sin, thus Christians, both male and female, must resist the “he shall rule over you” of Gen 3:16 (ESV). Likewise, the successful woman, according to Islamic feminist theory, “shoulders responsibilities. . . . She complies with religious principles without being abusive or abused. . . . She is not submissive to her husband because he is prone to human error.”45 Equally true, the Christian feminist accepts her moral agency, recognizing the rightful place of Christ as the sole mediator between God and humanity, resisting any notion that men may supplant Christ as priest, prophet, or king. Only Christ redeems and

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sanctifies. No human, male or female, can usurp God’s rightful place as Creator, redeemer, and sustainer.

Lack of Empathy In “Turning the Tables: Perspectives on the Construction of ‘Muslim Manhood,’” Abou-Bakr points to the need for empathy in ending the dominance and control of women by men fueled by gender essentialist rhetoric and religious theory. AbouBakr notes that as women “take on the religious responsibility of holding men accountable to certain Islamic ideals or ethics, judging and correcting their conduct, and demanding changes in their behavior,”46 women reverse roles with men. “This shift in focus destabilizes the power relations that have characterized the production of religious meaning, as it transforms women from the object of study and discipline to initiators of discourses that make men the target of moral scrutiny and reprimand.”47 Islamic feminists balance power by evoking a shared moral standard that not only holds men accountable but also creates empathy for women when their behavior is judged, critiqued, and shaped by men.48 Because separate gendered roles and spheres guarded by men foster gender-based violence, empathy plays a significant role in bringing change. Engaging twenty youth in Arab states, the United Nations created a powerful empathy-building exercise.

By inviting men and women to switch roles and respond to questions as the other gender might, “participants were asked questions that covered personal relationships, work, violence, political representation and attitudes towards equality.”49 The results revealed that nearly 67 percent of men when asked “how it felt to put themselves in women’s shoes expressed feeling oppressed, scared or grateful for being men. Meanwhile, 60 percent of the female participants said men had the right to whatever they wanted and feared nothing.”50 A twenty-six-yearold Saudi woman said she felt “exhausted by the distance between men’s perspectives and women’s perspectives in one society.”51 In my seminary course, entitled “Women in Church History and Theology,” students engage a series of empathy-building exercises. Based on the UN model cited above,52 students are asked to exchange roles. Men assume the posture of women and answer the following questions: 1. How would you respond if your church did not support your spiritual gifts and vocation as a pastor?

2. How would you respond if your husband believed he was the head and made all final decisions?

3. What if your husband is abusive, what would you do?

Women take on the role and posture of men and respond to the following questions: 1. As a pastor, how would you challenge a woman pursuing the pastorate against the teachings of Scripture?

2. How would you respond if your wife did not submit to your authority?

3. How would you respond if your church did not support your discipline of your wife?

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It is not uncommon to learn that this exercise was powerful, painful, and hard to process for men and women alike. Another empathy building exercise comes from the work of Jackson Katz, co-founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention and author of The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help. Katz, in creating empathy among men, asks mixed audiences to list five to ten steps they take each week to avoid sexual harassment and assault. Women have no trouble producing ten practical steps they routinely follow to prevent harassment and abuse. For men, this is often the first time they have ever considered the question, for themselves or for women.

Recognizing the power of empathy to upend colonial laws that shield rapists when they marry the survivor, Lebanese feminists dressed in bloodstained wedding gowns and took to the streets to demand better laws. Blood-soaked wedding gowns were also strung by nooses for miles along the major sidewalk in Beirut. Their strategy garnered public outrage for honor killings and secured legislation on behalf of survivors. This spectacle made visceral the indignity, injustice, and dangers for women who marry their perpetrators, a strategy that leveraged empathy in gaining needed legislation for women in 2017.53 As these examples illustrate, empathy leverages accountability.

of world governments only fostered ISIL’s dominance, impunity, and violence. By 2014, ISIL had massacred 5,000 Yazidi men and forced more than 5,000 Yazidi women into sex-slavery, including Nadia Murad.59 Determined to challenge the impunity of her perpetrators, Murad escaped, and defying cultural expectations for abused females, she made their crimes public. Beside the Lebanese-born human-rights lawyer, Amal Clooney, they are endeavoring to bring ISIL to trail at The Hague International Criminal Court. Honored by a Nobel Peace Prize in 2018,60 Murad demonstrates how silence breaking is key to overturning impunity and abuse. What makes silence breakers so extraordinary, regardless of one’s culture, is the courage it takes to hold a perpetrator accountable given the shame that accompanies sexual abuse and assault.

Challenging impunity on several continents, one of the most successful silence breakers was the physician, missionary, and Bible scholar, Katharine Bushnell. Along with a sisterhood of Christian feminists and activists, she exposed the abuse of girls and women enslaved in brothels worldwide.61 Her activism was a holy disruption to the impunity of perpetrators that not only inspired new legislation but also advanced an egalitarian theology that challenged distorted readings of Scripture that demeaned women’s character to justify abuse.62 Disabling the horse riders of power and abuse, these first-wave Christian feminists refused to excuse perpetrators that exploited females to satisfy a “natural impulse.”

In exposing a lucrative sex industry, Bushnell traveled the globe for thirty years with only a few personal possessions.

Facing dangerous encounters with perpetrators who consolidated power not only by colluding with elected officials, lawmakers, and police but also with distorted translations of Scripture, Bushnell exposed their indifference, impunity, and dominance. Bushnell denounced high-ranking officials like Sir John Bowring, British Consul to Hong Kong and author of the hymn, In the Cross of Christ I Glory. His legislation made it illegal for trafficked girls to flee their owners who exploited them for profit. Many of these girls and women were subsequently trafficked to the US in cities throughout the West Coast.63 Raising a public voice, Bushnell wrote,

Religious texts are too often read selectively and interpreted by “powerful male leaders” who assert the inferiority of women to justify the “gross and sustained acts of discrimination and violence against them.”

Environments that Foster Impunity Communities that score low on empathy, high on male dominance, and high on enforcing gender roles are often environments without accountability where men can act with impunity without consequences. Without justice and accountability, impunity festers and so does abuse. Impunity establishes deep roots in soil that is fed by gender essentialism as a religious ideal. The challenge of dethroning impunity is not lost on humanitarians like former US President Jimmy Carter, who has argued that “dominance over women is a form of oppression that often leads to violence.”54 Carter acknowledges that communities worldwide are guided by values that presume “a commitment to justice and mercy, equality of treatment of men and women, and a duty to alleviate suffering.”55 Nonetheless, religious texts are too often read selectively and interpreted by “powerful male leaders”56 who assert the inferiority of women to justify the “gross and sustained acts of discrimination and violence against them.”57 As one humanitarian said, “When one type of human being is deemed lesser, it provides license to treat them as less. No matter how subtle, dehumanizing ideas of people leads to dehumanizing actions.”58 Overcoming impunity requires a commitment by governments to hold perpetrators accountable through legislation, locally and internationally. It also means survivors must expose their abusers.

Consider the abuses perpetrated on women and girls by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Despite repeated reports of violence and abuse perpetrated against girls and women in Syria and northern Iraq, the indifference and lack of empathy 6 • Priscilla Papers

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“How can officials of high standing as Christian gentlemen be so indifferent to the wrongs of women and girls, so complacent in the dealings with the sensuality of men and so ready to condone their offences against decency?” We had met this again and again in our work. Lord Roberts himself—think of his noble record in other regards—had sent orders to under officials to secure “younger and more attractive girls” for the British soldiers. . . .64 After decades of humanitarian work, Bushnell sensed God calling her to research the biblical teachings on women. Learning

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the ancient languages, she discovered that male biblical scholars routinely associated women’s ontological status through Eve’s failures while few attended to the failures of Adam—a pattern she noted in working with prostituted females worldwide. Turning to the NT, Bushnell evaluated the apostle Paul as a fearless champion of women, provided they did not domineer (1 Tim 2:12) or speak in disruptive or distracting ways (1 Cor 11:5, 14:34). Challenging gender essentialism, Bushnell situates women’s character not in Eve’s sin but in new life in Christ. The Cross is good news not only for men but also for women. Christian feminists, like Bushnell, insisted that women must themselves be exegetes. For “no class nor sex should have an exclusive right to set forth the meaning of the original text.”65 Like Islamic feminists, Bushnell insisted on the same moral standard for women and men. Bushnell is part of a Christian feminist tradition that locates women’s identity and purpose in biblical history and tradition embraced without a patriarchal lens.

Conclusion As this brief essay demonstrates, Christian and Islamic feminists direct their intellectual and social acumen to expose and overturn the four horse riders of patriarchy: power, dominance, and authoritarianism; enforcing gender roles; a lack of empathy; and environments that foster impunity. In doing so, feminist discourse recovers women’s achievements throughout history suppressed and diminished by intentional patriarchal forces. For Christians, this will always include accurate Bible translations that give women their rightful place within the text as fully human, created in God’s image, and as fully redeemed and remade in Christ’s image and therefore equally active members of Christ’s body. Both Islamic and Christian feminist discourse expose gender essentialism that blurs the Creator-creature divide in securing ontological superiority for males. Faithful interpreters of both traditions also recognize how power imbalances too easily co-opt scholarship, whether in science, history, or theology.

Colluding with essentialist ideology, these subjects consolidate powerfully in framing females as ontologically inferior to males who in turn critique and assume authority over women. Turning the tables on patriarchy, both Christian and Islamic feminists will necessarily require ongoing dialogue and strategies to enter scholarly, legal, and social disciplines to retire patriarchy’s four horse riders of abuse.

Afterword Honored to collaborate with Islamic feminists in sharing strategies as a woman of faith, my paper inaugurated our sessions in Egypt. My observations were met with giggles by Dr. Omaima Abou-Bakr seated next to me. Raised in an honor-shame culture, I recognized her emotion as sympathy as she covered the same points in her paper moments later. It was then that I realized how unimaginative patriarchy is across time and culture.

These meetings, and others like them, have been opportunities for shared learning, collaboration, and strategy in identifying and upending the banal cruelty of patriarchal dominance as it distorts the sacred texts to demean women created in God’s

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image. Sharing research in public symposiums and across faith traditions has proved costly for both Christian and Islamic feminists, which demonstrates viscerally the prevailing presence of unchecked power and impunity and the need for ongoing academic engagement. We are better for having learned beside each other, even as we returned to our unique faith traditions more compassionate toward the plight we each share.

Notes 1. Robert A. Seiple, “A Rent in the Human Garment,” Washington Forum (1998) 9.

2. The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women assesses nine areas of concern including: Leadership and political participation, economic empowerment, ending violence against women, peace and security, humanitarian action, youth, governance and national planning, sustainable development agenda, and HIV and AIDS. In most categories, Arab women enjoy less equality and human flourishing. “What We Do,” UN Women, https://unwomen.org/en/ what-we-do.

3. See “What We Do,” UN Women; see also “What We Do: Gender Equality Strategy Overview,” The Gates Foundation, https:// gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Growth-and-Opportunity/ Gender-Equality; “The World Bank in Gender,” The World Bank, https://worldbank.org/en/topic/gender; “Economic Gains from Gender Inclusion: Even Greater Than You Thought,” International Monetary Fund (Nov 28, 2018), https://blogs.imf.org/2018/11/28/economic-gainsfrom-gender-inclusion-even-greater-than-you-thought/.

4. “Over the years, Mr. Pryor—a psychologist at Illinois State University—and others have used socially engineered situations in laboratories to study how well the test predicts people’s behavior.

And over time, they’ve identified these factors as the most distinctive in harassers: a lack of empathy, a belief in traditional gender sex roles and a tendency toward dominance/authoritarianism.” William Wan, “What Makes Some Men Sexual Harassers?,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Dec 31, 2017), https://post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2017/12/31/ What-makes-some-men-sexual-harassers/stories/201712310300%20 Accessed%201/2/18.

5. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (Secker & Warburg, 1949) 309.

6. Omaima Abou-Bakr, “Teaching the Words of the Prophet: Women Instructors of the Hadith (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries),” HAWAA: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 1/3 (Jan 2003) 308.

7. Abou-Bakr, “Teaching the Words of the Prophet.”

8. Abou-Bakr, “Teaching the Words of the Prophet,” 318–20.

9. Abou-Bakr, “Teaching the Words of the Prophet,” 321.

10. See Joe R. Lunceford, Biblical Women—Submissive? (Wipf & Stock, 2009).

11. Prominent female prophets include Huldah (2 Kgs 22:8–20, 2 Chron 34:14–33), Miriam (Exod 15:20), Deborah (Judg 4:4–5, 5:7), Anna (Luke 2:36–38), the women at Pentecost (Acts 1:14, 2:17), and Philip’s daughters (Acts 21:9). Paul suggests that prophets and apostles make known the mysteries of Christ (Eph 3:4–5).

12. See Kenneth Bailey, “Women in the New Testament: A Middle Eastern Cultural View,” Theology Matters 6/1 (Jan–Feb 2000) 2.

13. See Origen on Junia in his Commentary on Romans 10.21.1–27; 10.26.1–7; 10.39.41–47; see the English translation by Bridget Jack Jeffries, “Origen on the Apostle Junia: A New Translation,” Weighted Glory, http://weighted-glory.com/2018/12/origen-apostle-junia/. See also

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Commentarius in epistolum ad Romanos, Book 10 (10.21 cf. 10:26) (PG 14.1280). See also Chrysostom on Junia, Homily 31 on Romans, https:// newadvent.org/fathers/210231.htm. See also In epistolum ad Romanos 31.2 (PG 60.699–670). See also Jerome on Junia, Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominun 72.15 (CCLat 72.150) and Expositio ep. ad Romanos 16:7 (PL 30.744).

14. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Beacon, 2015) 40.

15. Omaima Abou-Bakr, as quoted by Hana’a El-Marsafy, “Islamic Feminist Discourse in the Eyes of Egyptian Women: A Fieldwork Study,” International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies 2/4 (Dec 2014) 43.

16. El-Marsafy, “Islamic Feminist Discourse.”

17. El-Marsafy, “Islamic Feminist Discourse,” 42.

18. John Piper said, “There is a masculine feel to Christianity. . . .

God has revealed himself to us in the Bible pervasively as King, not Queen, and as Father, not Mother. The second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son. The Father and the Son created man and woman in his image, and gave them together the name of the man, Adam (Genesis 5:2). God appoints all the priests in Israel to be men.

The Son of God comes into the world as a man, not a woman. He chooses twelve men to be his apostles. The apostles tell the churches that all the overseers—the pastor/elders who teach and have authority (1 Timothy 2:12)—should be men; and that in the home, the head who bears special responsibility to lead, protect, and provide should be the husband (Ephesians 5:22–33).” “‘The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle’— The Value of a Masculine Ministry” (sermon, Desiring God 2012 Conference for Pastors, Jan 31, 2012), http://desiringgod.org/resourcelibrary/biographies/the-frank-and-manly-mr-ryle-the-value-of-amasculine-ministry. On Aug 14, 2014, Owen Strachan tweeted, “Satan hates testosterone. You can’t blame him—after all, he’s seen it used to crush his head”; see https://twitter.com/ostrachan/status/49993393976 7574529?lang=en.

19. Gregory Nazianzus (330–389) wrote, To gar aprosleptom atherapeuton (“what is not assumed is not redeemed”), “Epistle 101,” Hardy, Christology, 218. Migne, P.G. 37:181.

20. See Marianne Meye Thompson, The Promise of the Father: Jesus and God in the New Testament (Westminster John Knox, 2000). See also James Barr: https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/39.1.28.

21. God as a mother bird (Ruth 2:12, Ps. 17:8); God as a she-bear and lion (Hos 13:8); God as a mother hen (Matt 23:37b); God as a midwife (Ps 22:9); God as a woman looking for her lost coin (Luke 15:9); God as a woman baking bread (Luke 13:20–21); God who gave birth (Deut 32:18b, Job 38:29); God as a nurturing mother (Isa 46:3–4, 66:13, Hos 11:3–4).

22. The faith of the Syrophoenician woman eclipses the twelve male disciples who cannot perceive how Jesus will feed the 5,000. She tells Jesus that the crumbs under the table are enough (Mark 7:24–30); the rich young ruler cannot abandon his wealth (Mark 10:17–22), but the widow gives all she has (Mark 12:41–44). The Twelve grasp for power because they want to sit at Christ’s right and left hand (Mark 10:35– 45); they forbid even children to approach Jesus (Mark 10:13); they are outraged and humiliated when Christ speaks with women openly (John 4:27); and Judas betrays Christ. When Jesus is arrested and crucified, the Twelve disperse, one denies Christ openly, and the others hide behind locked doors. Not the women! They understand that Christ’s work is completed on a cross: a woman anoints Jesus as the priests anointed the kings of Israel (1 Sam 10:1, 16:12–13, Matt 26:6–13). Unlike

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the disciples, the women remain with Christ during his crucifixion and prepare his body for burial. Returning on Easter, Mary is the first to meet the risen Lord. Christ sends her to the disciples with the good news. She becomes the apostle to the apostles. Yet, the disciples do not believe her. Even as Jesus appears to them, Thomas asks to touch his wounds (John 20).

23. See Mimi Haddad, “Reading Scripture Through a Patriarchal Lens: How Masculine Christianity Distorts Divine and Human Ontology” (paper presented, Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, San Antonio, TX, Nov 16, 2016).

24. Gender essentialism is the notion that males and females have a different “essence” that is fixed and unchangeable; it is determined at birth biologically and shapes a distinct and different identity and purpose for males and females. See Elaine Storkey, Origins of Difference: The Gender Debate Revisited (Baker, 2001) 25ff.

25. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani, and Jana Rumminger, eds., Men in Charge? Rethinking Muslim Legal Tradition (Oneworld, 2015) 49.

26. Mir-Hosseini et al., Men in Charge?, 52.

27. Mir-Hosseini et al., Men in Charge?, 54.

28. Mir-Hosseini et al., Men in Charge?

29. Mir-Hosseini et al., Men in Charge?, 55.

30. Irenaeus, fragment 32, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff (Eerdmans, 2001) 1:573.

31. John Chrysostom, “Homily IX,” in Homilies on 1 Timothy, NPNF 13:436.

32. Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.10, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, ed. Philip Schaff (Eerdmans, 1886) 5:267.

33. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, in Calvin’s Commentaries, trans. William Pringle (Calvin Translation Society, 1856) 37.

34. John Knox, “The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women 1558,” in The Political Writings of John Knox, ed. Marvin A. Breslow (Associate University Presses, 1985) 43.

35. Charles Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Robert Carter and Bros., 1860), Eph 5:23.

36. Mark Driscoll, Church Leadership: Explaining the Roles of Jesus, Elders, Deacons, and Members at Mars Hill, Mars Hill Theology Series (Seattle, WA: Mars Hill Church, 2004), quoted by Denny Burk, “Mark Driscoll on Women in Ministry,” Denny Burk (blog), July 5, 2007, http://dennyburk.com/mark-driscoll-on-women-in-ministry-2. See also John Piper and Wayne Grudem, eds., Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (Crossway, 2006) 36–59, 316ff.

37. Omaima Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables: Perspectives on the Construction of ‘Muslim Manhood,’” HAWAA 11 (2014) 90.

38. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables.”

39. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables,” 90.

40. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables,” 99.

41. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables,” 98–100.

42. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables,” 102.

43. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables,” 91.

44. El-Marsafy, “Islamic Feminist Discourse,” 34.

45. El-Marsafy, “Islamic Feminist Discourse.”

46. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables,” 91.

47. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables.”

48. Abou-Bakr, “Turning the Tables,” 90.

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49. “‘What If We Switched Roles?’ New Social Experiment Raises Awareness of Gender Stereotypes in the Arab Region,” UN Women (March 24, 2016), https://unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2016/3/arabstates-video-what-if-we-switched-roles.

50. “‘What If We Switched Roles?’”

51. “‘What If We Switched Roles?’”

52. “‘What If We Switched Roles?’”

53. Rothna Begum, “Middle East on a Roll to Repeal ‘Marry the Rapist’ Laws,” Human Rights Watch (Aug 24, 2017), https://hrw.org/ news/2017/08/24/middle-east-roll-repeal-marry-rapist-laws.

54. Jimmy Carter, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power (Simon & Schuster, 2014) 3.

55. Carter, Call to Action, 5.

56. Carter, Call to Action, 3.

57. Carter, Call to Action, 4.

58. The individual who made this profound observation prefers to remain anonymous.

59. Richard Spencer, “Isil carried out massacres and mass sexual enslavement of Yazidis, UN confirms,” The Telegraph (Oct 14, 2014), https://telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11160906/Isilcarried-out-massacres-and-mass-sexual-enslavement-of-Yazidis-UNconfirms.html.

60. “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2018,” The Nobel Prize (Oct 5, 2018), https://nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2018/press-release/.

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61. Dr. Katharine C. Bushnell, A Brief Sketch of Her Life Work (Rose and Sons, 1932). Available at https://godswordtowomen.org/brief%20 sketch.htm.

62. Katharine Bushnell, God’s Word to Women: One Hundred Bible Studies on Woman’s Place in the Church and Home (Christians for Biblical Equality, 2003).

63. Kristin Kobes du Mez, A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2015) 83.

64. Bushnell, A Brief Sketch of Her Life Work, 12.

65. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 273–74.

MIMI HADDAD is president and CEO of Christians for Biblical Equality International. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (Summa Cum Laude). She holds a PhD in historical theology from the University of Durham, England.

Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University awarded Mimi an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity in 2013.

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Raising Up Allies: A Standardized Pathway for Developing Men into Allies to Women Rob Dixon

In May 2015, in Cardiff, Wales, IBM Global Managing Partner Andrew Grill made an unexpected move at a panel discussion entitled “Online Influence.” The panel was comprised of six men.

When a brave woman named Miranda Bishop pointed out the gender imbalance, Grill made his move. Rising from his seat, he offered his chair to Bishop. With encouragement from the crowd, she took his seat. Grill later reported, “Miranda brought an amazing perspective to the panel. . . . The response to our new panelist was extremely positive, as I had expected.”1 Men such as Grill are allies for women. In her book, Becoming an Ally, Anne Bishop defines an ally as “a member of a dominant group who works to end a form of oppression which gives them privilege.”2 As an umbrella term, allyship can include a range of activities, from standing in solidarity, to tangible pastoral support, to empowerment, to advocacy.3 In the area of gender, a male ally seeks to advance the standing of women in his context by every available means.

This article rests on the premise that one strategy for achieving gender equality in the church is developing more men into more effective allies. If our communities of faith can mobilize men to do the work of allyship in partnership with their sisters, we can all more fully live out God’s intention for equal partnership between the genders.

To help with this process, this article will lay out a standardized pathway that men can take on their journey to becoming an ally. Incorporating data gleaned from several oneon-one interviews and a focus group, together with the author’s analysis and personal reflections, this article proposes a sevenstep process that communities of faith can use to help shape men into allies to women. The overall route, which will be examined in more detail below, is presented in Figure 1.

1. Starting Position Generally speaking, men launch into the allyship pathway from one of three starting places. First, they may be predisposed to

Figure 1

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positive allyship. In this case, men have had a set of life experiences that make them open to embracing the notion of becoming an ally to women. For instance, one of the male allies surveyed for this study noted, “I grew up in a church . . . that allowed women to serve in every aspect of ministry, including pastor, and I did not interact with [a] denomination . . . that denounced [women in leadership] until [college]. . . . I would put myself at a soft egalitarian before starting down the [allyship] road.”4 A second starting position from which men can begin the pathway is an antagonistic or even adversarial posture. Another man interviewed for this study fits this scenario, for his bias coming into his allyship journey was that women should not be teaching or leading men. Describing his starting position as “nominally complementarian,” he can recall the restrictive theological preconceptions that he held as he entered into his experience of the allyship pathway.

Finally, a third starting point can be labeled neutral, or perhaps unaware, apathetic, or even naïve. In this case, the man is in the dark about the whole notion of privilege.5 By virtue of either willful choice or genuine ignorance, the man is not predisposed to be either for or against the idea of allyship to women. Further research would be warranted here, but it seems genuine neutrality is the least common starting position of the three options.

2. Disruptive Encounter with the Notion of Privilege Whatever their starting position, at some point would-be male allies have their worldview around gender challenged. In particular, they are invited to consider that the world tilts in their favor, simply by virtue of their male gender.

“Disruption” often carries a negative connotation, but disruption can in fact be productive. Based on his research of women reentering school after long breaks, sociologist Jack Mezirow developed a ten-fold process by which people experience transformation in their worldviews. Mezirow’s first phase is entitled “a disorienting dilemma,” and everything else flows from this singular disruptive event.6 This encounter can look different for each person. One man’s disruptive encounter consisted of conversations with his then girlfriend, who expressed her desire that their relationship be complementarian in form, a conviction that he realized he did not share. Reflecting on his experience, this man wrote: There was not only this desire for her to have a man that could “lead her spiritually” in a relationship, but also that this belief carried over into all aspects of ministry.

[Her belief was] that man was inherently created to lead, and women were not. This time solidified my convictions and effectively ended my relationship, though there were other factors.

For other men interviewed, this disruptive encounter step in the pathway involved focused Bible study that presented an egalitarian view, new awareness of the realities of sexual assault and abuse, a respected person with an articulated egalitarian

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perspective, and personally experiencing the godly leadership of women in mission.

Whatever form it takes, the common theme at this step in the pathway is disruption. Men in this step have their presuppositions challenged, and the question is how they will respond.

3. Response to Disruption Following this disruptive experience, there is a fork in the road.

One route in the pathway is marked by a negative response. The disruptive experience fails to propel the man forward on his journey toward becoming an ally, and instead he returns to one of the three starting places.

Though it seems likely that entering into the disruptive encounter with privilege from an antagonistic or adversarial perspective can result in a negative response, this is not certain.

In two cases, men who self-described as antagonistic as they engaged this particular step emerged committed to continuing along the allyship pathway.

Alternatively, men can choose the fork that results in heart change toward becoming an ally to women in their context. This heart change can include repentance as well as resolution to do whatever is possible to level the social playing field. One man described his heart change experience in this way: It was often overwhelming when I began to think: “What can I do, and how can I be doing better?” but I found an eagerness that matched. I concluded that I could do the little that I can, in my actions and my speech, but the new, primary goal was to look for opportunities to listen—to hear the stories of women in my life and respond. To mourn alongside, ask for what would best serve them and remain in a learner’s posture. Also, to keep sacred those opportunities when women in my life share vulnerably, to vocalize my appreciation that they would trust me with their stories and to provide spaces for them to safely, freely practice their giftings within ministry.

Successfully navigating this step in the pathway can depend on available resources. For instance, several men described their experience in Scripture study as formational. Confronted with the notion of privilege, they searched the Scriptures, noting how Jesus and others managed power and how the Bible lays out a message of gender equality.

In addition, a key component for this portion of the pathway is the presence of process helpers. For several of the men interviewed for this article, a key step in the heart change process was processing their experience with a trusted mentor. These mentors were able to pastor these men through their dissonance and to encourage them to continue along the pathway.

Finally, one of the men interviewed discussed the notion of displacement in helping him navigate this disruptive encounter.

For example, he opted to place himself under the authority of a woman pastor and to read women authors. Choosing situations that would continue to challenge his worldview was a critical step for this man in becoming an ally.

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Regardless of the process, the central issue is a positive response. Men who successfully navigate this fork in the pathway road embrace the reality of male privilege and emerge willing to do something to even out the social balance.

4. Initial Attempts at Allyship Armed with a fresh sense of conviction from having walked down the route of heart change, budding male advocates take initial steps into the world of allyship.

In his junior year of college, one of the men surveyed co-led a small group with a woman. Perceiving subtly adverse dynamics in play against her, he “consciously [took] action against it.” For instance, when people would come to him because he was the male co-leader, he would “leave more space for her to talk, and whenever there was a question . . . rather than just jumping to answer, I would ask [her], as a way to open up social space.”

Another man’s first ally experience took the following form: Our two Bible study leaders at the time were both women and were being questioned by other women in the ministry as to the validity of their roles as leaders based on 1 Timothy 2:11–12. Upon hearing this, I asked my two leaders how that made them feel and left them space to share. To be honest, my mind immediately jumped to wanting to share with them the Scriptural basis that I had learned; however, I wanted to properly respect, honor and keep sacred their initiative to share with me and I remembered the ways that having space to process had solidified my own convictions. After we had time to talk about how they saw the comments as a result of a highly-conservative Baptist upbringing and not a personal attack on their own capabilities and processed through God’s calling on their lives and their own church upbringings, I invited them to study some of the passages [I had been studying], including the 1 Timothy 2 passage. They both accepted the invitation and by the end of the few weeks that we studied, both expressed how much they appreciated being able to look at the passages from a new perspective and were encouraged. Since [then], any opportunity I can, I intentionally affirm their capabilities and positions in front of the rest of the chapter.

For a third man, heart change prompted a commitment to challenge his fellow football players to clean up their language regarding women. His initial attempts at becoming an ally to women involved advocating on their behalf in his college’s football locker room.

Whatever form the allyship takes—solidarity, support, empowerment, or advocacy—at some point, would-be allies need to do something intentional with their convictions. This is a critical step in the allyship pathway.

5. Pushback Experience The fifth step in the allyship pathway involves pushback. Either in response to the initial attempt at becoming an ally, or in 12 • Priscilla Papers

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response to a further attempt, pushback seems to come with the allyship territory. How a man responds to this pushback dictates whether or not he will progress on the pathway.

In their Harvard Business Review article entitled “How Men Can Become Better Allies to Women,” Brad Johnson and David Smith lay out two forms of pushback.7 First, they describe the “wimp penalty,” where male allies get backlash, primarily from other men, because of their choice to associate with women.

“New research reveals that men perceived as less self-promoting and more collaborative and power-sharing are evaluated by both men and women as less competent (and, not incidentally, less masculine).” Second, men can face pushback from women, who either doubt their motivations or resent the “pedestal effect,” where men get lauded for relatively minor efforts at championing women.

In one instance, one man’s initial allyship step took the form of speaking up in a committee meeting when the group was only considering male speakers for an upcoming ministry opportunity. Taking a risk, he invited the group to consider a slate of women leaders. Unfortunately, the pushback to his suggestion was significant. After processing his fears and potential courses of action with a trusted mentor, this man made a second attempt to influence the committee. In the end, though the group ignored his plea, this moment served as an important marker on this allyship journey. Because he had put himself and his reputation on the line, he emerged from the experience galvanized and determined to continue to advocate as an ally.

Pushback is a painful part of the male allyship pathway. In fact, this is a second place where men can find themselves opting out of the journey altogether, as the process of putting themselves in the line of fire proves to be too much.

Still, fully-formed male allies will have experienced some degree of external resistance to their allyship for women in their context. Indeed, it would seem that a man is not fully an ally until he has experienced personal pushback.

6. Continued Investment My personal journey as an ally includes a step where I walked into a meeting with a male student in our campus cafeteria, prepared to help him see the Bible’s message of gender equality. What I was not prepared for was the pastor he had also invited, and that pastor proceeded to spend the next hour eviscerating me, time and again labeling me a false teacher because of my theology and practice of gender equality.

This pushback experience was formational for me in my process of becoming an ally, in good measure because it meant that I had personal skin in the game. That is, I was now invested in a way that I was not prior to that moment, and that investment triggered a season marked by theological exploration and self-reflection.

The investment phase of the pathway entails continually growing as an ally. It means repeatedly taking on the position of a learner. There is a sense in which male allies are constantly wrestling, both with their own privilege and with how to more

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effectively challenge the systems in their contexts. Men in this step experience a change in how they view power and understand that “true power multiplies when it is shared.”8 For men interviewed for this study, this humble learning posture fuels a desire to think through “201-level” allyship ideas, including when to advocate and when not to, how to become proactive vs. reactive in engaging potential pushback, and how to raise up the next generation of male advocates.

7. Habitual Allyship In this final step on the pathway, men begin to use the language of identity with regard to their efforts at allyship. They fundamentally see themselves as allies, and that identity has depth and significance for them. These men have become habitual and courageous allies, full of conviction about this identity that they have taken on.

One man described his posture this way: I’m an ally because I believe that empowering women in leadership is profoundly biblical and that the church is impoverished where patriarchy, male privilege and sexism reign. I really want a church where men and women are free to use their gifts in any context. I’m motivated because my leadership and faith journey have been shaped in powerful ways by women and I want the same for everyone.

Sounding a similar note, another man writes, “my goal is to use whatever voice and influence I have to develop women as leaders and help them find places to make the contribution that God intended them to make.”

The testimonies of these men resonate with Jesus’s habitual allyship on behalf of women. In Mark 14, Jesus is in Bethany at the home of Simon the Leper. While at dinner, a woman comes into the room, breaks open an expensive jar of perfume, and uses her hair to anoint him. Some of those present judge the woman’s actions to be a waste and a disgrace. The text notes that some began to scold the woman. Jesus’s response both validates her actions and puts those critiquing her in their place. He says: Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.9 These advocating words are those of a habitual ally. May it be so that more men in our faith communities travel a path that makes them more like Jesus in this way.

Implications There are at least four key places in this pathway where communities of faith should focus in order to develop more men into more effective allies.

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First, our communities need to be thoughtful about creating disruptive encounters. Whatever their starting position, we should be thoughtfully inviting men into the allyship journey by causing them to consider their privilege. This could involve making intentional choices with our programming, both in large and small groups. For instance, a sermon series on women in leadership, or power, or masculinity, could open up fertile ground from challenging someone’s paradigm. Alternatively, book discussion groups focused on these topics could also provide more intimate contexts for disruptive encounters.

Second, as or after paradigms are challenged, our communities of faith should apply pastoral energy to walk alongside men as they strive to interpret their disruptive experience. Process helpers such as mentors can make the difference in a man continuing forward toward heart change or sliding back to the starting place with a negative response. One way to utilize men who are in stage 7 is as guides to other men as they process during stage 3.

Third, communities of faith should also consider pastoring men through steps 4 and 5. Mentors can again be useful here; since this is another place where men can opt out of the pathway, it makes sense to provide guides at this step. Another option is the implementation of a cohort model. Gathering novice allies into a learning community as they make their initial attempts and experience pushback is a key way to help them through these steps. In addition, utilizing a man who has progressed through the entire pathway to facilitate these groups would be wise.

Finally, when men move from stage 6 into 7, our communities of faith should be intentional about celebrating their journeys along the pathway and commissioning them into service as allies.

Further, community leaders should identify strategic places where allies can be deployed in their context and seek to match individual men with those opportunities. For instance, not every allyship opportunity calls for an advocate. Some men would be a better fit as pastoral support for women in their context.

Conclusion To be sure, a diversity of strategies will be necessary in order for the church to more fully embrace a vision and practice of gender equality. One strategy should be developing more men into more effective allies for women in their contexts. The church needs a fresh crop of Andrew Grills. This standardized pathway can provide a roadmap for communities of faith to use in helping this become a reality.

Notes 1. Grill’s article can be found here: https://linkedin.com/pulse/ hacking-all-male-conference-panel-problem-real-time-andrewgrill/?trk=prof-post. Bishop’s reflections on the event are here: https:// talkingsocialmedia.co.uk/find-female-speakers-panel/.

2. Anne Bishop, Becoming an Ally: Breaking the Cycle of Oppression in People (Fernwood, 2015) 134. Similarly, Johnson and Smith define a male ally as a “member of an advantaged group committed to building relationships with women, expressing as little sexism in their own behavior as possible, understanding the social privilege conferred by their gender, and demonstrating active efforts to address gender

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inequalities at work and in society.” W. Brad Johnson and David G. Smith, “How Men Can Become Better Allies to Women,” Harvard Business Review (Oct 12, 2018).

3. Diversity consultant Jennifer Brown charts allyship on a continuum, from apathetic (clueless and disinterested) to aware (understanding the issues but unengaged) to active (engaging, but only when asked) to advocate (proactive champions). See http://jenniferbrownconsulting. com/blog/from-unaware-to-accomplice-the-ally-continuum/.

4. When it comes to the roles of women and men both in the home and in ministry, there are two general theological camps.

Complementarians believe that while men and women are created equal, God has designed men to be leaders, with women serving in supporting roles, both in the home and at church. By contrast, egalitarians believe in shared leadership between husband and wife, as well as the openness of all ministry roles for anyone, regardless of gender.

5. Karen Catlin defines privilege as “a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group. Due to our race, class, gender, sexual orientation, language, geographical location, ability, religion, and more, all of us have greater or lesser access to resources and social power.” Karen Catlin, Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces (Karen Catlin Consulting, 2019) 12.

6. In some respects, Mezirow’s transformative learning theory runs parallel to the allyship pathway described in this article. For instance,

Mezirow’s eighth step is “provisionally trying out new roles,” which would be akin to the fourth step, where a man attempts to be an ally to women in his context. Jack Mezirow, Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (Jossey-Bass, 1991) 168–69.

7. Johnson and Smith, “How Men Can Become Better Allies to Women.”

8. Andy Crouch, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power (InterVarsity, 2013) 41.

9. Mark 14:6–9, NRSV. Numerous passages confirm Jesus’s habitual allyship to women. For instance, he empowers and releases the woman at the well in John 4, he places himself in solidarity with the forgiven woman in John 8, and he heals and supports the faith-filled woman in Mark 5.

ROB DIXON lives in central California with his wife, Amy, and four children and works as a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He earned a Doctor of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he focused on discerning the attributes of flourishing mixed gender ministry partnerships. Find Rob online at TogetherInMission.net.

LONDON SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY | AUGUST 11–14, 2021 We are pleased to announce that we have rescheduled our 2020 conference in London to August 11–14, 2021.

We are carefully monitoring the impact of COVID-19 and are researching options for virtual participation.

Featuring leading scholars and activists, including: Andrew Bartlett

Natalie Collins

Barrister, international arbitrator, and author of Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts

Gender justice activist, speaker, consultant, trainer, and author of Out of Control: Couples, Conflict and the Capacity for Change

Elaine Storkey

Lucy Peppiatt

Philosopher, sociologist, theologian, international activist, and author of Scars Across Humanity: Understanding and Overcoming Violence Against Women

Principal of Westminister Theological Centre and author of several books, including Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women: Fresh Perspectives

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Learn More at

cbe.today/ 2021conf

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Engaging Women with a Suffering Sophia: Prospects and Pitfalls for Evangelicals Cristina Richie

Throughout the Scriptures, God is described as acting in the personification of Wisdom, or Sophia.1 This is the basis for Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson’s appropriation of the title “God,” replacing it with “Sophia.” Johnson argues that each person of the Trinity is Sophia, just as each person of the Trinity is God. Therefore, according to Johnson, it is accurate to maintain that Father-God, Son-God, and Holy Spirit-God can each be called Sophia. Under this nomenclature, theologians may speak of God-Sophia, Logos-Sophia, and Spirit-Sophia. Naming God as “Sophia” critically aligns the Divine with a specifically female concept, while also expanding the theological understanding of the character and attributes of God-Sophia.

This article will explore the ways in which God-Sophia, and specifically the person of Logos-Sophia, engages women in Johnson’s theology. First, I will describe Johnson’s suffering Sophia through her two-fold process of deconstructing male language for God and reconstructing female language for God. Second, I will enumerate the ways Logos-Sophia suffers in a manner women can identify with, according to Johnson. Third, I will sketch Johnson’s view on the suffering Sophia in the deteriorating natural environment. Fourth, I will offer a critical analysis of Johnson’s Trinitarian theology, particularly for evangelicals driven by concerns of sex-equality and eco-destruction, which are often intertwined. After these pitfalls have been identified, my conclusion will offer prospects for evangelicals to utilize the theology of a suffering Sophia.

Sophia Suffering and Women Before Sophia can be connected to women, it is necessary to clear away the conceptual weeds of a male-described God. Johnson notes that the male-dominated language historically used to describe God—in English and in the biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—is damaging to women on several fronts. Following from this observation, this article will use “God” when referring to the male concept of God that Johnson is writing against and “Sophia” when referring to the female concept of God that Johnson is endorsing. Of course, God is neither male nor female.

Yet, the association, repetition, and reiteration of a male God is destructive for theological and feminist reasons.

Male Language and God-Talk Gender refers to the cultural construction of physical, emotional, social, and mental attributes that men and women are expected to have. Men are expected to have a masculine gender and women are expected to have a feminine gender. Sex refers to the biological and chromosomal features of men and women. Men are called male and women are called female.2 Even though God the Trinity is beyond gender and has no sex, God—envisioned in the Person of the Father, Spirit, or the Trinity—is typically referred to as “he.”

To be sure, it is accurate to refer to Jesus Christ, who was incarnate in a male body, as “he.” However, there is no basis for

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referring to the other persons of the Trinity as “he.” In addition to revealing an inconvenient paucity of English language pronouns, male language when talking about God is problematic from Johnson’s perspective for the following reasons.

First, male language about God normalizes the male over the female.3 When God is referred to as “he,” androcentrism becomes ingrained into culture and reifies a language where the male is dominant. Androcentrism seeps beyond theology and into everyday language where man or male is stylized to represent all humans. For instance, while modern Americans understand that “mankind” has historically been used to mean “humanity,” whereas woman is subsumed under man, the converse cannot be said. “Womankind” never means “men and women.” The consequence of male-dominant language, whether describing God or humans, is the failure to recognize women’s independence from men and discrete existence in humankind.4 Second, exclusively male language enshrines divinity as being the same substance—homoousios,5 if you will—as men.

As such, divinity cannot encompass women because of physical sex differences.6 Indeed, the argument in the Catholic Church for a male-only priesthood echoes this notion. Johnson explains the opinion of the Church as such: “men are not only more truly theomorphic but, in virtue of their sex, also christomorophic in a way that goes beyond what is possible for women . . . men, thanks to their ‘natural resemblance,’ enjoy a capacity for closer identification with Christ than do women.”7 Men, in male bodies, are more similar in form to the incarnate God than women. When the Church affirms, “men alone among human beings are able to represent Christ fully,” they are subscribing to a phallocentric construction of God.8 This overemphasizes the material importance of embodiment, which is not extended to other characteristics, such as height, weight, skin color, ability, or age.

Third, when male words are used to describe God, sexism, patriarchalism, and androcentrism are endorsed.9 When God is seen as male, it is a short leap for men to see themselves as god. After all, when Christians worship an all-powerful King and describe God as Ruler and Lord, men might forget themselves as mere mortals since they are able to identify with a male Divinity. The king or lord of the land begins to imagine himself representing God and being an ambassador of God.10 The aphorism that “every man is a king in his own home” implies that female adults and children are mere vassals within the earthly household. Therefore, it is not only the Machiavellis of the world that adopt a sexist, megalomaniac, theistic-complex, but plebian men too. Inevitably, this leads to the denigration and abuse of women, male and female children, and underclasses.

Since male language has been the standard means of speaking about God, some women have struggled to relate to God. Although men have a direct entry point into Christian imagery through

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their brother Jesus, women have not had a similarly tangible means to identify with God. In recognition of the problems associated with male language and God-talk, theologians—and feminist theologians in particular—have tried to “add” female qualities to a male God, or to unearth “feminine” images of God by focusing on the person of the Holy Spirit.11 These maneuvers are unsatisfactory for Johnson since the additive approach still originates from an improperly gendered male God, while the focus on a female Holy Spirit leads to an improper gendering of a different kind. Thus, Johnson proposes a third way: using both male and female images of God equivalently.12 Johnson is able to achieve this objective by expanding the lexicon for describing God. Johnson’s linguistic investigation goes beyond the typically male God the Father and beyond the typically female Holy Spirit to the embodied Christ. Metaphors are used instead of characteristics. The female experience and female epistemology are prioritized, while remaining within biblical theology. Recovering female metaphors for each of the three Persons of the Triune God places women in a context where “speech about redemptive suffering can be genuinely countercultural, and of benefit to women.”13 These metaphors include suffering from giving life and suffering rendered by confronting injustice.

Recovering Female Metaphors of Sophia Suffering Johnson maintains that recovering the female metaphors for Sophia will help women understand—and relate to—a suffering Being.14 Johnson focuses on metaphors that highlight suffering because suffering is a fundamental part of all lives, but women’s lives in particular. Suffering links God to women because GodSophia suffers. It must be iterated that the suffering of Sophia is metaphorical since Sophia has neither a body that can be harmed, nor emotions that can be hurt. Although the incarnated LogosSophia suffered physically, the suffering detailed in Johnson’s articulation of theology is not physical.

Metaphors related to procreation are especially pertinent.

God-Sophia is the giver of life. Women alone give life through parturition. Furthermore, procreation connects many women to each other historically through the experience of motherhood via birth.15 Johnson comments, “In a way unique to half the human race, women labor in bearing and birthing each new generation, a suffering which can be woven round with a strong sense of creative power and joy.”16 This uniquely female experience is reflected in the account of Sophia in Isa 42:14, which reads, “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant” (NIV).

This verse in particular is a “superb metaphor for Sophia-God’s struggle to birth a new people.”17 While the metaphor of birth is relatable for many heterosexual, fertile, procreative women, it is not the only feature of motherhood, womanhood, or suffering.

Rather, Johnson recovers the metaphor of a suffering Sophia through activism as well.

Johnson recognizes the pain women feel when they confront injustice as another aspect of suffering which connects women to God-Sophia. Attempting to make the world more equitable, with a determined pursuit of justice, has been a noble feature of women throughout time. Johnson acknowledges, “women suffer 16 • Priscilla Papers

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when they choose to act in situations, great or small, to bring about the betterment of human life through the pursuit of human rights, healing, justice and peace.”18 The female experience is linked to Sophia in the prophetic function, or “the engagement of the God who loves justice.”19 A willingness to suffer for justice is not merely intellectual, it is visceral.

When the initial suffering from injustice subsides, women are left with the residue of anger. In the same way, Sophia is angry at injustice. “For the wrath of God in the sense of righteous anger . . . is a caring response in the face of evil.”20 Righteous anger is directed at anything emotionally destructive, pernicious, or vicious. In sum, anger rooted in suffering resonates with women who are advocates for themselves and for others.21 Through birth, anger at injustice, and other female metaphors in Johnson’s book, She Who Is, a portrait of a suffering Sophia emerges. Women identify with this Sophia if they have given biological life or courageously stood against injustice. Both birth and social engagement cause suffering. But these metaphors paint only a partial picture of a suffering Sophia women can relate to.

Sophia Suffering and Positive Attributes The idea of a suffering God, particularly through the scandal of the cross, is unappealing for many. Suffering is often seen as a deficiency of being. “If God can suffer,” so the logic goes, “then He can be of no help.” However, it is precisely the capacity to suffer that makes Sophia relatable, particularly for women. Johnson maintains that personal suffering can be described in a manner that is simultaneously positive and conducive to identification with the suffering Sophia.

Recognizing the positive attributes of suffering balances the painful metaphors for suffering previously identified.

Johnson thus proposes three positive aspects of suffering that can communicate a suffering Sophia to women. First, suffering can be an expression of love. Second, suffering can demonstrate excellence of character. Third, suffering can be a comforting guide in life’s tribulations. These attributes affirm the experience of women as painful, but also deeply positive.

Suffering as Love Many women identify with the word “love.” Women love in their own lives, despite suffering. Through communal, familial, and sexual relationships, women engage in love. In a parallel manner, Johnson states, “the essence of God can be seen to consist in the motion of personal relations and the act that is love.”22 God is Love. And yet, we know experientially that love can cause suffering. Relational love often has painful contours.

When Sophia reflects a suffering love, it must be in a manner “appropriate to divine being.”23 Since Sophia is perfect, metaphors of a loving-but-suffering Sophia must co-exist with immutable attributes of God. Sophia’s suffering love emerges from an ebullience of being and “overflowing of compassion.”24 In this way, the suffering of Sophia is not indicative of weakness or powerlessness, but rather “a most characteristic expression of divine freedom active in the power of love.”25 Love and suffering are explicitly demonstrated in the suffering of Logos-Sophia.

Through a superabundance of love Sophia came as Redeemer.

Johnson thus explains, “the crucified God freely chose to suffer

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with us and does so actively out of the fullness of love.”26 This love is positive and redemptive. Even so, aligning suffering love with positive characterization can be misunderstood.

Johnson warns that suffering love should not be interpreted as an imperative for women to harm themselves for the sake of others. The suffering love of Sophia was self-chosen, not imposed. Many women are pressured to emulate the martyrdom of Logos-Sophia or forced into social roles that are parasitic on women’s love.27 Johnson’s caveat is well-taken. Sometimes the suffering love that women experience can be destructive, but this is not real love. The suffering, crucified love of Sophia was for the purpose of human redemption, not self-annihilation.

Suffering as an Excellence For humans, suffering is associated with a lack of fortitude, since it implies that one is out of control. Johnson rejects this model of suffering and suggests that, instead of being conceptualized as a negative experience, suffering can be viewed as an excellence when rendered in terms of absolute freedom. God cannot be immobilized, thus speech about God’s “suffering with and for the world points to an act of freedom, the freedom of love deliberately and generously shared.”28 Suffering is therefore a characteristic manifesting from excellence rather than demerit. Women may regard their suffering as having been chosen in freedom. In this free choice, women demonstrate a fully formed maturity that does not compartmentalize reactions to life.

It is therefore more appropriate, and more beneficial for women, to render the suffering Sophia as excellence instead of inferiority. When suffering is chosen, not compelled; adopted, not refused; accepted, not rejected, it can indicate an excellence of character through freedom. Women can thus upend the traditional acceptance of suffering and reclaim meaning in the midst of pain, acknowledging the freedom to feel pain. They do so by identification with a perfect Being who suffers and demonstrates fullness of character.

Suffering as a Guide Finally, suffering can be viewed as a positive attribute when it is constructively used as a guide for women in times of need. When women seek a compassionate ear to listen, or a shoulder to lean on, it is not enough that someone would merely tolerate or superficially understand the situation. Rather, through identification of suffering, women find camaraderie and encourage each other. Through the shared experience of suffering, women can simultaneously identify with Sophia and gain wisdom from these experiences.

Mutual assistance in the face of adversity forms bonds of affinity. Note Heb 5:2, where the earthly priest is a representation of Christ. The priest “is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness” (NIV). Similarly, Logos-Sophia, our high priest, can relate to us, having entered into flesh and into our suffering. “The mystery of God is here in solidarity with those who suffer.”29 Sophia can hence guide women even in their darkest hour.

Just as the priest of Hebrews actually went through pain, so too can women in their pain take comfort in the sufferings of Logos-Sophia incarnate, who was like us in every way but sin.

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In dealing compassionately with women, Sophia identifies with them, just as the high priest identifies with the people. Sophia’s suffering speaks to women as a guide, through the shared experiences of earthly embodiment.

She Who Is establishes that Sophia suffers metaphorically in terms that many women can relate to. The female metaphors of birth and activism are theology from below, for they speak from women to Sophia. Suffering may be viewed as negative. However, through the divine positive attributes of love, excellence, and guidance, a theology from above integrates the suffering of Sophia and the lived experience of women. Particularly through the incarnate Logos-Sophia, women are offered a relatable God, who speaks to them in their own language, with their own experiences. Johnson’s both/and approach to metaphors for the suffering Sophia draws women to Sophia and Sophia to women.

Sophia Suffering and the Earth Johnson’s intellectual work on the suffering Sophia goes beyond systematic theology and into the discipline of eco-feminism, which works to disrupt the hegemony by pointing to the minoritymajority—those who are often overlooked in male-dominated, technophilic societies. Women, the earth, and the economically depressed are among those in this disenfranchised group who suffer at the hands of patriarchy, eco-destruction, and exploitive capitalism, respectively. These three systems of power are related; the domineering mentality that endorses sex-subordination is the same viewpoint that legitimizes overuse of the earth’s resources and an economic system that crushes the poor. Eco-feminist theology was built from the canons of feminism, liberation theology, and ecology, which I will review briefly.

Feminism, Liberation Theology, and Ecology: Ecofeminist Theology The second wave of American feminism in the 1960s roughly corresponded with the first ecological movement. It was a time of groundbreaking books like The Population Bomb and The Feminine Mystique.30 The first Earth Day was in 1970 and many social issues in ecology percolated into feminism. Awareness of overpopulation and global destruction came to fore. Subjugation of the weak, exploitation, competition, and the countervailing themes of collaboration, equality, solidarity, and liberation apparated in both feminist and environmental movements. In the same time period, theology was exploring new approaches to address these modern issues.

Liberation theology developed in response to social justice concerns like women’s equality, civil rights, and environmental destruction. Grounded in Scripture and historical church teachings, liberation theologians turned their focus to the “nonperson through the praxis of justice.”31 In particular, a theology of nonpersons was funneled through the ecological movement, which highlighted responsibility to the earth and non-human animals.

Ecological theology, or eco-theology, is at the nexus of biblical theology, theological ethics, and liberation theology. Related to it, ecological feminism highlights the overlapping concerns of women, suffering, and nature. Since Sophia has been theologically linked with the feminine—and women have consistently been

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concerned with eco-destruction—the union of ecological theology and eco-feminism resulted in eco-feminist theology.

Linking Suffering and Ecology Johnson’s ecological feminist theology utilizes the idea of a suffering Sophia to describe the modern concern of environmental destruction. As the Creator, Sophia is grieved by the destruction of creation. As the Incarnation, Sophia palpably feels the crumbling ecosystem. As the Sustainer, Sophia witnesses the progressive plunder of the earth. Johnson does not go as far as Sallie McFague in claiming that the earth is God’s body32 and therefore planetary harm is harm to Sophia directly. Johnson does, however, create a theology predicated on the suffering Logos-Sophia, who was incarnate in and through the world.

The suffering of Logos-Sophia in relation to the natural world is of particular importance to Johnson because of the incarnation.

The incarnation was the fusion of Sophia and earthly matter, as Christ is both fully God and fully human. Indeed, the connection between nature and Christ is seen in the term “deep Christology,” which is used to “signify the radical divine reach into the very tissue of biological existence and the wide system of nature.”33 Sophia’s decision to live on earth as an embodied person speaks to the immense care for all of creation.

It is significant that Johnson recognizes the interdependence between humans and nature instead of claiming redemption only for people. Sophia showed solidarity with the earth by entering the world in which “human beings are a part and on which their existence depends.”34 Human beings do not “own” the world and thus Johnson affirms that “we share with all other living creatures on our planet a common ancestry” which leads to concern for both animate and inanimate beings.35 While many, perhaps most, people would argue that actions to remediate human suffering must always take priority over planetary suffering, theologians cannot act as if humans live apart from the deteriorating world.36 Planetary health affects human health through climate change health hazards, topographies of destruction, and the disruption of earth’s seasons.

Johnson maintains that “to be in solidarity with divine care amid creation’s groanings, believers must enter the lists of those who act compassionately for ecological well-being, enduring the suffering this entails.”37 Humans who act on behalf of environmental conservation may suffer for a variety of reasons.

They may feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of ecological injustice. They may experience discomfort from changes in eating or transportation habits. They may be targets of disdain from people who do not share a commitment to reducing population growth and resource consumption. Yet, humans have a model for engagement with the earth through SophiaIncarnate, recognizing the suffering that this activism may cause.

Taken as a whole, the suffering Sophia in Johnson’s eco-feminist theology highlights the connections between women, the earth, and the poor. In fact, “if nature is the new poor then solidarity with the poor . . . encompasses the earth and its distressed myriad of creatures.”38 The suffering Sophia on the earth, ultimately, is an additional avenue for women to connect to God, as they understand exploitation of the earth is exploitation of women, but also that a deep Love came to earth to redeem creation.

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Sophia Suffering: Perils for Evangelicals Johnson has continued to be a prolific scholar, advancing both feminist and theological goals, while maintaining a valiant concern for language used to describe God. Her innovative writings have shaped a generation of theologians, while her emphasis on language has been a contributing factor to the current consciousness theologians have in using inclusive pronouns for God and humanity. However, Johnson’s work is not above critique.

Some Protestants may inherently be wary of a Catholic theology, and evangelicals, in particular, may be hesitant to embrace either feminist theology or eco-theology due to the historical preference for masculinist theology and dismissal of conservationist social movements.39 Thus, I will identify some perils for evangelicals who wish to adopt either Johnson’s theology of the suffering Sophia or Johnson’s eco-theology, in order to address them. Both feminist theology and ecological theology are wide tents with many camps, and the similarities that unite Christians are greater than the differences that divide us. Staking out common ground is my ultimate goal in the hope that Johnson’s work will be utilized by evangelicals more often, thus bringing the gospel to women in as many ways as possible.

This may be viewed through a missiological lens, or simply as a matter of deeper theological understanding.

Sophia Suffering and Women While Johnson highlights the way Sophia suffers through the physical experiences of childbirth, emphasizing the functions of fertile women is problematical. Sophia-as-mother can harm women by setting up a normative pattern of emulation for all women. The image of woman as biologically and/or theologically bound to procreative sexuality has long been used as evidence of women’s social and physical inferiority.40 Because the “office” of motherhood is seen as natural and unchanging, women are directed towards activities that help them fulfill this destiny and away from activities that might hinder reproduction—for example, education, work, and singleness.

Evangelical theology, building on the Scriptures as the ultimate form of moral guidance, is committed to the NT Great Commission of making disciples of all nations (Matt 28:16–20), not the OT procreative imperative (Gen 1:28). Under the new covenant, the singleness teachings of Jesus (Matt 19:10–12) and Paul (1 Cor 7:7) reinforce the excellent choice of childfree or nonpartnered individuals.

This commitment is liberating because the association between women and motherhood has disastrous social, economic, vocational, and relational effects, in large part because of a patriarchal structure that uses women’s physical function as a weapon.41 The sacrificial mother is the epitome of “women’s work.” The venerated sex, placed on a pedestal, masquerades over the fundamental inequality that comes when one is a mother in a patriarchal society.42 Since the procreative imperative is often tied to the subservient roles of housewife and homemaker, it should be no surprise that women have resisted these models. For many women, the image of mother—and its attendant biological processes—is ensnaring and stifling.43 Evangelical women who

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choose to be childfree often feel conflicted by contradictory social and biblical narratives, or are ridiculed as targets of derision by fellow Christians.44 Moreover, the womb has always been a matrix to be feared, lest a woman die in childbirth. Maternal mortality and morbidity are still present threats in the United States and other countries.

As evangelical couples try to balance the imperative to take care of orphans (James 1:27), devote themselves to God and their spouse, and fulfil the Great Commission, what was once an inevitability—that a woman will be a biological mother—is now an option. Moreover, the increase in infertility means that Sophia as mother who is “bearing, birthing and nursing . . . conceiving, being pregnant, going into labor, delivering, midwifing, and nursing”45 is unobtainable for some women. Evangelicals who wish to use the suffering Sophia as a way to relate to women must move away from emphasizing metaphors of God as mother, or reclaim the metaphorical weight, acknowledging that women can and do become mothers through non-biological means, such as adoption, fostering, and step-parenting, as well as through spiritual means (1 Tim 1:18).

Sophia Suffering and the Earth Ecofeminist theology is somewhat of an advanced intellectual discipline that relies on systematic theology to “ground and motivate the moral imperative to care for the earth,”46 in addition to deep appreciation of feminist commitments and environmental ethics. Ecology has been accused of being a mostly white, welleducated, Western enterprise. While this accusation overlooks the important outcomes of ecology which benefit all people, it does point to a pitfall in Johnson’s theology that evangelicals will recognize: the lack of contextualization.

Hispanics are one of the fastest growing groups of evangelicals.

These, and other racial and socio-economic groups in the United States, are primed to embrace and disseminate the gospel. Thus, the connection between the suffering Sophia and the destruction of the earth must be made in a way that is relatable to all people.

Environmental initiatives to reduce resource consumption and become more sustainable—thereby mitigating the suffering of Sophia in the world—are often couched in privilege. For instance, Johnson proposes “celebration of the Sabbath may be the best way to inculcate a Christology which promotes respect for the earth.”47 While setting aside one day every week might be manageable—even welcome—for the woman working in a high-stress job, it will probably not be feasible for a laborer who needs to work every day to survive. Likewise, farmers in the United States might be able to let a field lay fallow in exchange for government subsidization, but global workers must harvest annually. Johnson’s ecofeminism does not reflect the realities of poor and working-class people worldwide.

Womanist theologian Jacquelyn Grant has pointed out that feminism has frequently neglected racism and is often tied to the aspirations of white women.48 It may suit white women to depend on the labor of black women for childcare, domestic duties, and other household tasks under the guise of “Sabbath.”

At the same time, it is convenient to ignore the wage gap of black and brown migrant farmers who produce organic food for upper-class homes.

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Since womanism49 has historically been concerned with race, economics, and feminism, an eco-womanist view is more effective in disseminating the ideas of a suffering Sophia in the natural world, particularly for evangelicals who cannot ignore the changing demographics of our faith worldwide. Evangelicals can leverage the longstanding commitment to social justice and highlight environmental racism, health disparities due to systematic factors, and the fast food empire as issues of theological importance. For eco-feminism to move beyond Sophia suffering and environmental destruction, it has to be relevant for all people.

Conclusion Elizabeth Johnson has succeeded in giving theologians a way to speak about God apart from a purely androcentric position.

Moreover, by focusing on the suffering of Sophia in ways that women can identify with, she has moved feminist theology forward. By linking Sophia to creation care, and Logos to nature, Christians have a platform to articulate environmental stewardship. The “struggle to change the conditions in the direction of the new heaven and new earth” are achieved through our re-found metaphors of God.50 Alleviating the suffering of other humans and nature is clearly possible within Johnson’s framework. Ideally, these advances lead to solidarity among women and between humans and nature.

Though today there are some aspects in Johnson’s work that may need to be adapted for an evangelical theology—notably, focusing on women’s reproduction and a bourgeois ecological theology—the link between a suffering Sophia, women’s experiences, and the earth are clearly made. In essence, “victory arrives through the living of communion of love, overcoming evil from within.”51 Indeed, community, love, and redemption is the crux of evangelical, Trinitarian, Christocentric theology, which feminist theology and eco-feminist theology endorse. Johnson succeeds in her objectives of drawing women closer to Sophia through relatable language and highlighting the suffering of Sophia in the world. She has given evangelicals the tools to reach more women with the gospel. And that is Good News, indeed.

Notes 1. “Sophia” is the Greek word for “wisdom.” It is found throughout the NT and the Greek translation of the OT and is prominent in Proverbs.

2. Cristina Richie, “Sex, not Gender. A Plea for Accuracy,” Experimental & Molecular Medicine 51/133 (2019) 1.

3. Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (Crossroads, 1992) 33.

4. Andreas Köstenberger, “Editorial,” JETS 63/1 (2020) 1–4.

5. Homoousios means “of the same substance” and is part of the Nicene Creed’s description of the Persons of the Trinity.

6. Johnson, She Who Is, 35–36, 38.

7. Johnson, She Who Is, 153 (quoting the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (Inter insignores)” (Oct 15, 1976).

8. Johnson, She Who Is, 153.

9. Johnson, She Who Is, 34–35, 37.

10. Johnson, She Who Is, 36.

11. Johnson, She Who Is, 47–49, 50–54.

12. Johnson, She Who Is, 54–56.

13. Johnson, She Who Is, 254.

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14. Johnson, She Who Is, 34, 254.

15. Though this is less and less the case. 17% of white women in the US ages 40–44 were childfree in 2012/2014. In 2006 the percentage was higher, at 20. Gretchen Livingston, “Childlessness Falls, Family Size Grows Among Highly Educated Women,” Pew Research Center (May 7, 2015).

16. Johnson, She Who Is, 255.

17. Johnson, She Who Is, 255.

18. Johnson, She Who Is, 256.

19. Johnson, She Who Is, 256.

20. Johnson, She Who Is, 258.

21. The group M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) is an example of women displaying anger at injustice and advocating for themselves and their families. Their mission is “to stop drunk driving, support the victims of this violent crime and prevent underage drinking.” See https://madd.org.

22. Johnson, She Who Is, 265.

23. Johnson, She Who Is, 252.

24. Johnson, She Who Is, 265.

25. Johnson, She Who Is, 251.

26. Elizabeth Johnson, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (Continuum, 2007) 62.

27. Johnson, She Who Is, 265.

28. Johnson, She Who Is, 266.

29. Johnson, She Who Is, 267.

30. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (Buccaneer, 1968); Betty Freidan and Anna Quindlen, The Feminine Mystique (W.W. Norton, 1963).

31. Elizabeth Johnson, “Presidential Address: Turn to the Heavens and the Earth: Retrieval of the Cosmos in Theology,” CTSA Proceedings 51 (1996) 1–14, at 4.

32. Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Fortress, 1993).

33. Elizabeth Johnson, “Deep Christology: Ecological Soundings,” in From Logos to Christos: Essays in Honor of Joanne McWilliam, ed. Ellen M. Leonard and Kate Merriman (Wilfrid Laurier University, 2010) 163–79, at 169.

34. Johnson, “Deep Christology,” 170.

35. Johnson, “Deep Christology,” 168.

36. Cristina Richie, “Carbon Reduction as Care for Our Common Home: Laudato Si’, Catholic Social Teaching, and the Common Good,” Asian Horizons—Dharmaram Journal of Theology 9/4 (2015) 695–708.

37. Johnson, “Deep Christology,” 177.

38. Johnson, “Deep Christology,” 175.

39.

Many evangelical organizations endorse sex-equality and environmental conservation. Notable examples include CBE International, at https://cbeinternational.org; and the Evangelical Environmental Network, at https://creationcare.org.

40. Cristina Richie, “Medical Technologies, Environmental Conservation, and Health Care,” Medicina e Morale 65/6 (2016) 759–72.

41. Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” The Atlantic (July/Aug 2012), http://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/ why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020; Sheryl Sandburg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Knopf, 2013); Cristina Richie, “The Augustinian Legacy of the Procreative Marriage: Contemporary Implications and Alternatives,” Feminist Theology 23/1 (2014) 18–36.

42. “A man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregard her physical and emotional equilibrium.” Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Humanae Vitae (USCCB, 1968) 17.

43. Rosemary Gillespie, “Childfree and Feminine: Understanding the Gender Identity of Voluntarily Childless Women,” Gender and Society 17/1 (2003) 122–36; Terri Casey, Pride and Joy: The Lives and Passions of Women Without Children (Beyond Words, 1998); Laura Scott, Two is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childfree (Seal, 2009); Ellen Walker, Complete

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Without Kids: An Insider’s Guide to Childfree Living by Choice or by Chance (Greenleaf, 2011).

44. Jean E. Jones, “Don’t Judge Me Because I'm Childless,” Today’s Christian Woman (Jan 2014), https://todayschristianwoman.com/ articles/2014/january-week-2/dont-judge-me-im-childless.html; Laura M. Vandiver, “So, When Are You Starting a Family?,” Today’s Christian Woman (July 2001), https://todayschristianwoman.com/articles/2001/july/9.54.html.

45. Johnson, She Who Is, 100.

46. Johnson, “Deep Christology,” 164.

47. Johnson, “Deep Christology,” 164.

48. Linda Harrington, “Feminists’ Christs and Christian Spirituality,” in Christology: Memory, Inquiry, Practice, ed. Anne M. Clifford and Anthony J. Godzieba (Orbis, 2002) 214–36, at 220.

49. “Womanism” typically refers to feminism that is attuned to the history and experiences of women of color, especially black women.

50. Johnson, She Who Is, 271.

51. Johnson, She Who Is, 268.

CRISTINA RICHIE (PhD, ThM, MDiv) is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine. She is the author of Principles of Green Bioethics: Sustainability in Health Care (Michigan State University Press, 2019) and over thirty peer-reviewed articles, including articles in Priscilla Papers, Christian Bioethics, and Theology and Sexuality.

Dr. Richie is a co-chair of the Bioethics Consultation of the Evangelical Theological Society and holds a nominated fellow appointment at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity International University.

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Yin-Yang and the Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: An Evangelical Egalitarian East-West Dialogue on Gender and Race Amos Yong1

When we think about male-female roles in relationship to Asian American churches, especially those from evangelical and East Asian contexts, there is a sense of a general correlation between the complementarianism in evangelical Christianity and that of the Confucian tradition.2 But what about evangelical egalitarians who are of East Asian descent or those more dialogical (white and other) evangelicals who might think that theological construction in the twenty-first century ought to engage crossculturally and transnationally with non-Western traditions in general, including Asian and especially East Asian sources? Is there a way forward beyond the dominant complementarian discourse at this nexus where a predominantly white North American evangelical Christianity has met racial and ethnic others, especially East Asians in the contemporary milieu?

The following develops the egalitarian thesis (sketched in the first section below) that the Day of Pentecost’s outpouring of the Holy Spirit on sons and daughters transforms male-female and East-West relations in anticipation of the coming divine reign.3 A parallel argument (in the next section) is then discerned when considered in global context, albeit one conducted protologically rather than teleologically—i.e., seeking to retrieve ancient sources rather than aimed eschatologically—focused in particular on how ancient Daoist understandings of yin-yang complementarity (which differs from how the term is used in North American evangelical discourse and will be clarified later) have the potential to check and balance traditionally received Confucian notions of female subordination. Such an East Asian approach is then brought into conversation with the Pentecost argument (in the final section) to suggest how the eschatological transformation of the divine breath can be understood also as fulfilling the potential of ha adam (Hebrew, “the human,” “Adam”), promised from the creation narratives and do so across the racial-ethnic lines compromised by the fall. Readers should be warned that the argument remains quite abstract, operating mainly at a rather dense theoretical level, in order to clear the space for an evangelical egalitarian dialogue on gender and race that is transcultural and comparatively theological.

One important set of caveats needs to be registered. My scholarship has focused thus far much less on race and even less on gender,4 and more in the comparative theological arena, especially Buddhist-Christian dialogue.5 But even in the latter venue, this is my first foray into the other two of the “three streams”—san chiao, literally “three ways”—around which East Asian cultures have been woven over the last two millennia: the Confucian or Daoist traditions. My approach here is therefore tentative as we cannot hope to be exhaustive in the present context, not least because the comparative theological enterprise recognizes that theological and philosophical concepts do not translate easily across religious traditions and hence their juxtapositioning, as initially set out here, has to be done with care, the kind of which cannot be fully accomplished in what is an exploratory paper.

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Furthermore, what we are attempting at this juncture is also methodologically fraught, bringing comparative theological approaches to bear on issues of gender and race, and in that sense, multiple discursive sites and currents need to be navigated.

Consider the next few pages then, as no more than preliminary first steps for a (pentecostal and) evangelical transcultural, transnational, and transreligious dialogue where gender and race overlap. Not only will there need to be deeper engagements with East Asian wisdom traditions along these lines, but also further discussions with other non-Western interlocutors in order for a more robust global evangelical theological paradigm to emerge.

The following seeks to contribute to the few brave souls charting such a global evangelical conversation,6 yet in this case, is focused at the intersection of gender and race.

Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Sons and Daughters Prophesying from Every Nation under Heaven I have long argued that the Day of Pentecost narrative opens up to a trans-ethnic, transnational, transcultural, and thereby a transreligious theological exploration.7 In the present discussion, we will observe also that the Lukan account includes the registers of both race and gender. In brief, the promise of Pentecost not only extends to the “ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8) but also includes “sons and daughters,” indeed, “both men and women” (Acts 2:17–18).8 These are extrapolations to be sure, since contemporary notions of “race” and “gender” that read back into ancient biblical texts without careful qualification will undoubtedly be anachronistic. Hence, how can we attend to Luke’s own perspective at this juncture?

First, let’s be clear about the cosmic horizons of the Lukan texts (both the Third Gospel and Acts). The introductory segments of the messianic narrative already announce, drawing from the prophet Isaiah, that he would be “a light of revelation to the Gentiles” and that through his ministry, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 2:32a, 3:6; cf. Isa 40:5, 42:6, 49:6, emphases added). Jesus himself then is described as inaugurating his public ministry by referencing an Isaianic passage that is replete with images of the nations being drawn into Israel’s orbit and, in that procession, toward the God of Israel (Luke 4:16–19; cf. Isa 61:1–2, passim).9 We are therefore not surprised when the disciples’ Jerusalem-centric questions to Jesus before his ascension, about when he would “restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6b), is answered more universalistically: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The Pentecost scene then suggests that this initiating of a movement outward, to the ends of the earth, is preceded, complemented even, by a centripetal dynamic.10 As these messianists “were all together in one place” in receiving the divine breath (2:1b), their glossolalia (2:4) is heard by “devout

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Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem” (2:5).

It is not only that the sixteen regions or ethnic/national groups (2:9–11) are meant to be representative of the known world, but “visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes” are noted as present (2:10b). This means that the blowing of the divine wind needed not wait until the end of the story (Acts 28) to reach the edges of civilization—Rome, from the apostolic Jerusalemcentered perspective—but that the center and the periphery are already brought together from this Pentecost beginning, all together caught up in the outpouring of the divine breath.

If Luke would have known about the Americas and Oceania, or about East, South, and Southeast Asia, he would have included them on his list. What is clear is that the divine breath enabled “speaking in the native language of each” (2:6b), leaving a bewildered, amazed, and astonished (2:6a, 7a) gathering of those from around the known world to ask, “how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” (2:8), and then, in a sense, answer their own question: “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power” (2:11). What is clear, then, is that the promise of Pentecost concerns the capacity of the gospel to be announced in the native languages of the world.

Indigenous, local, and glocal cultural-linguistic traditions thus have the potential to be conduits of the divine word, carried by the divine wind.

There is one more point to be made, which is when Luke records Peter’s explanatory response to the perplexed crowd (Acts 2:12), drawing on the prophet Joel: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (2:17–18; cf. Joel 2:28–29).

As if to accentuate the cosmic scope of the divine breath’s gift, Luke (through Peter and Joel) underscores that the promise is for and upon all flesh. As there are none who are neither sons nor daughters (or neither men nor women)—at least in the ancient near Eastern mind—that is the egalitarian point: Any and all can be visited by the divine wind and hence can speak or bear witness to God’s redemptive work.11 Then put together, I would read the Pentecost narrative as inviting our attentiveness to the witnesses of those to and from the ends of the earth—in this case, East Asian cultures and traditions. More specifically, we ought to heed the witnesses of women, those who are daughters among us. This is not to say that any testimony is equal to any other—that is, the ongoing task of discernment;12 it is to say that the witnesses of all persons ought to be listened to on their own terms, no matter the color of their skin, whether male or female, and regardless of national, cultural, or geographic origination.

Spirit Poured Out on East Asian Flesh: Implications of Yin and Yang Complementarity for Male-Female Relationships I now wish to turn East, in part because this reorienting belongs to my own lifelong sojourn to connect more deeply with my ethnic and cultural heritage,13 but in part, also because in our new global context, all theological reflection and construction 22 • Priscilla Papers

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will need to be cross-cultural and inter-religious in some fundamental respects. Here, however, we step back behind the important efforts of retrieving and documenting women’s voices, not because such work is unimportant, even as this would be the natural extension of the Pentecost narrative’s authorization of female speech (prophesying, etc.).14 Instead, given the theological reframing of the preceding that empowers our reaching out to engage with East Asian traditions, we now transition also theologically, albeit refracted on the philosophical key given the non-theistic character of the East Asian context, in order to probe the theology and philosophy of gender. In particular, our question is how to engage with East Asian understandings of gender amid our quest for a global egalitarian theology. We shall see that reliance upon traditional Confucian sources is less promising than a turn to the philosophical and other currents flowing into Daoism that coalesced during the latter part of the so-called Axial Age (ca. eighth – third centuries BCE).

What is so commensurate about Confucian gender perspectives and evangelical complementarianism is the subordination of female to male, especially in their assigned spheres: the former to the domestic arena and the latter to the public realm. In the Analects itself, there are only three references to women, with the most problematic one comparing women to “small men” (in contrast to what would have been normally expected for male capacities; 17:25) almost offset by the other two that justify consultation with a woman (6:28) and include a woman among other governing officials (8:20).15 Yet what was the presumed division of labor of Confucius’ time came to be codified in the Liji (the Record of Rites that most scholars date to the first century BCE): “The woman follows the man: in her youth, she follows her father and elder brother; when married, she follows her husband; when her husband is dead, she follows her son.”16 It was this subordinationism—known initially as the “Three Obediences” and then later as the “Three Bonds,” both indicative of female submission under male domination—that came into full flowering over the course of the next millennium when, during the Neo-Confucian revival, only males were allowed to be educated and to participate in civil, legal, and political activities and women were relegated to the domestic sphere.17 This long history of sociopolitical hierarchicalism and patriarchalism is what correlates with Victorian-era sensibilities that clearly define male and female roles, locating the latter predominantly in the household.18 Ironically, such gendered Confucian “complementarianism” has developed despite a Daoist “minority report” that yinyang “complementarity” is arguably egalitarian in at least some respects of this latter contemporary notion. What we now call Daoism—related to the primary canonical documents such as the Dao de Ching and the Zhuangzi that found convergence around the third century BCE—itself drew inspiration from various pre-existing tributaries, not least the Yīnyángjiā or School of Yin-Yang, a speculative system of metaphysical and cosmological thought that derived from the occult arts of astrology, almanacs, divination, and physiognomy.19 In brief, as summarized by Wing-tsit Chan, “all things and events are products of two [opposite] elements, forces, or principles: yin,

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which is negative, passive, weak, and destructive, and yang, which is positive, active, strong, and constructive.”20 Yin and yang were certainly correlated with female and male respectively, but these were also natural and cosmological associations, not merely anthropological or gendered notions. So, if the primordial forces of heaven and earth, the chi of the world, not only encompass and connect but also regulate the yin-yang movement, then the cosmos is an ongoing dynamic of alternation, waxing into and waning out of balance continuously.21 Yin and yang are thereby potencies that rotate through and constantly transform the five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—that produce the phenomenal world as we know it. With the appearance of human creatures, the yin-yang structure of the world also interrelates their actions, whether of individuals, communities, societies, governments, etc., with heaven and earth’s natural rhythms, so that human activity is optimized when ritualized in accordance with the seasons of the cosmic environment.

Intriguingly, while yin and yang are “Chinese chains of opposition,” these are of the complementary rather than the contradictory or conflicting sort.22 Thus, if in the West, binaries contest against each other toward erasure, in the East Asian mentality, yin and yang “are the assimilating and differentiating influences behind chains of pairs,”23 each everlastingly impinging upon the other, neither with capacity without the other, relationally interconnected and never apart. Primarily “symbols of movement or action, rather than the symbols of entity or substance,” yin and yang are thereby “[co]existentially opposite but essentially united.”24 Put pointedly, yin (becoming-changing) and yang (being-unchanging) coinhere in all reality and things and are “interdependent, interactive, intertransforming, and interpenetrating . . . [and] enjoy equal metaphysical status to the extent that neither could exist without the other [both are indispensable] and neither is absolutely dominant over the other.”25 Epistemically, then, yin-yang is both-and holism, rather than either-or binarism,26 while culturally and operationally, East Asian idealism presumes yin-yang interrelationality and inter-connectedness.

Applied to our topic at hand, however, yin-yang philosophy is more about the cosmic and relational dynamics of humanbecoming than reducible to male-and-female distinctions.27 Yes, the yin is generally linked with the female and the yang with the male. Yet, as one Korean American theologian writes: “I am yang in my relation to my wife but yin in my relation to my father.

It is thus the relationship that determines whether I am yin or yang.”28 Yin and yang therefore are about not just male-female but all relationships. From this perspective, then, the Daoist tradition’s absorption of the yin-yang cosmology also moderates the subordinationist norm for women in the East Asian world bequeathed through the later Confucian tradition. If “Daoism definitely favors yin, the moon, and soft, while Confucianism prefers yang, the sun, and strong,” the interdependency of yin and yang means that the “charge of sexism should belong to the Confucian view of women rather than to the Daoist view of women.”29 The Daoist tradition has thereby perennially lifted up women as cosmic life-givers, as divine teachers and media of cosmic revelations and healing potencies, and as embodiments of the essential ingredients for human and

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personal transformation,30 even if it achieves all of this in ways that support rather than subvert Confucian values such as filial piety and loyalty to the state.31 Thus, Asian American evangelical women have been drawn to and also attempted to develop a yinist-feminist paradigm toward an anthropological theology of harmony in dynamic equilibrium.32 One comment is important before transitioning back to explicitly evangelical theological considerations. The option for the Daoist minority report is not meant to suggest that Daoist traditions are free from the patriarchalism of East Asian cultures more generally, nor even that Daoist complementarity would not even resituate the relationship with the main lines of Confucian development in a more both-and rather than either-or frame of reference. Put otherwise, the preceding is meant to serve as a heuristic reappropriation of East Asian resources that can allow for a more egalitarian vision to emerge from out of the dominant gender complementarianism that especially evangelicals have associated with contemporary Confucian perspectives. In that respect, Daoist complementarity suggests that evangelicals working on issues of gender across racial lines can engage fruitfully across the East-West chasm since received Confucian complementarianism does not need to have the final word on how to think about male-female relations, not just in a North American, but also in a global context.

Spirit Poured Out on Ecclesial-Catholic Flesh: Gender Egalitarianism and Trans-Ethnic Complementarity in the Anointed Messiah In this final section, I wish to return toward an evangelical egalitarianism but now informed by East Asian—and Daoist, in particular—sources. If evangelical complementarianism (note the -ism with which I consistently deploy in this regard) maps onto and mutually reinforces Confucian subordinationism, then evangelical egalitarianism may gain from a trans-cultural dialogical exchange with Daoist and yin-yang complementarity (note: not an -ism). There are three brief steps in sketching the contours of how such a more robust conversation might ensue.

First, we began with the Pentecost event in Acts 2 to discover that its message regarding the outpouring of the divine breath upon all flesh, male and female alike, was the fulfillment of ancient Israelite prophecy regarding the eschatological renewal and redemption of the world. In the Daoist and yin-yang scheme of things, the world and its members are all derived from a primordial heavenly modulation of continuously dynamic and complementary interactions. Daoist protology here anticipates Pentecostal eschatology, and both have implications for reconsidering male-female relations in the egalitarian perspective.

I am not here wishing for any simplistic appropriation of Daoist ideas with Christian theology.33 This is but an initial step that begs for deeper comparative analysis.34 From this, and second, the pneumatological approach toward a Pentecost-theological anthropology is consistent with the christological framing of a Pauline conception: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:27–28). The formation of the new people of God

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is about, in this case, the overcoming of the three most obvious barriers dividing human beings: ethnicity, social status, and gender.35 The new body of Christ does not in this case erase the particularities of human identities and bodies: There are still Jews and Greeks, just as there remain those enslaved and those free (see also 1 Cor 7:21–24), and human bodies continue on as male and female in this ecclesial dispensation. Precisely for these reasons, Asian and Asian American biblical scholars emphasize Galatians “as a resource for Christocentric inclusivity,” reconfiguring the body of Christ beyond East and West.36 As Jews and Greeks are no longer divided in Christ, so also Asians and Americans are united in Christ, beginning with the experience of the spirit of Jesus (Gal 3:2–3).

Yet, thirdly, the Pauline phrase may have other eschatological ramifications for gender beyond those related to ethnicity. If the apocalyptic imagination foresees that the eschatological people of God will nevertheless retain those distinctly distinguishable “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev 5:9b; also 7:9), then Jesus’ response to the Sadducees’ questions and disavowals about the resurrection of the body was that men and women “neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt 22:30). Yet the point here is less to deny that male and female become something else, like angels, than to undermine the Sadducee assumptions about the character of the resurrected life. From this perspective, the “neither male nor female” in Galatians was not about anticipating a non-gendered resurrected embodiment but about overcoming the divisions between men and women in this present aeon. More precisely, this is about redeeming and renewing the promise of maleness and femaleness heralded in the creation. As Craig Keener puts it, Paul here uses the precise terminology for male and female that appears in the creation narrative. Most commentators thus suspect an allusion to Gen. 1:27 here; the three-word phrase together quotes exactly the phrase in Genesis. Paul envisions a restoration of the primeval unity of male and female that flourished before the judgment of Gen. 3:16. . . . Some find here an allusion to primeval androgyny, a prototype of the new creation. Some Jewish thought understood the original Adam as a hermaphrodite before Eve was taken from him; God first made “man” and then separated out the female component; originally the man was “neither male nor female.” Paul’s interest, however, is not a return to the putative androgyny of the old creation, but rather the transcendent status of a new creation.37 Yin-yang cosmology thereby also maps onto the male-female complementarity identified in first creation.38 Whereas yin and yang are mutually interdependent, male and female are also two aspects of ha adam, and it is the hierarchical domination of one over the other that is overcome in Christ by his breath. Pentecost announces that the coming divine reign is now present, at least in part, by the spirit of Jesus, and that this eschatological transformation both heals the subordinationism of female to male normalized in both the West and East, and fulfills the promise of the first creation, not to mention the yin-yang vision of anthropological complementarity.

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This essay has operated at the so-called 30,000-foot level in being mainly theoretical and abstract in its comparative theological consideration of race and gender in evangelical contexts. If we were to begin to touch down in the historical realms of evangelical practice, there would be a lot more unpacking of implications for male-female relations ecclesially and interpersonally. My approach would be to bring scholarship on women in Luke-Acts or evangelical and pentecostal models of women in ministry, for instance, into the evangelical egalitarian conversation, but now in dialogue with Daoist complementarian perspectives.39 The issue with evangelical complementarianism is that the possibilities of male and female mutuality are undermined by subordinationist impulses, so the key would be to imagine reciprocal praxis looking backward and forward to both creational and eschatological horizons. My wager is that Daoist notions can helpfully factor into such an exploration to inspire imaginative forms of interrelational practice for a global evangelical ecclesia.

In this essay, I have made some very preliminary suggestions about how we can develop a pentecostal and evangelical egalitarian theology in transethnic and intercultural dialogue with East Asian sources. I have suggested that a yin-yang approach provides a dialogical lens for evangelical thinking about theological anthropology that connects our protological ruminations with our eschatological hopes.40 Much more work needs to be done, not only comparatively and constructively between Western and East Asian Christian communities, but also between men and women in both venues and in between (such as in Asian America). May a fresh Pentecost blow upon male and female bodies for this venture.

Notes 1. Thanks to Mimi Haddad and CBE (Christians for Biblical Equality) International for inviting my participation on the panel on gender and race in the “Evangelicals and Gender” section of the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting, San Diego, California, 21 November 2019, and then to the CBE journal Priscilla Papers for publishing my essay along with those of other panelists at the event, for the encouraging peer review report, and for the editorial corrections. I have taken this invitation to consider matters intersectionally to press further into the East Asian dimension of my own ethnic identity and, from that perspective, have turned to resources that I am familiar with, predominantly that of the comparative theological enterprise with which I have long been engaged. Given this East Asian trajectory of argumentation, I thereby also appreciate Priscilla Papers for a publication policy that does not inhibit appearance elsewhere, and to the editors and peer reviewers of ChristianityNext for both accepting this paper and substantive referee feedback that helped to render the argument, however preliminarily, more coherent and compelling. I am grateful also to Jeremy Bone, my graduate assistant, for proofreading prior versions of this essay twice. All remaining errors of fact and interpretation are my responsibility.

2. As evident in Nikki A. Toyama and Tracey Gee, eds., More Than Serving Tea: Asian American Women on Expectations, Relationships, Leadership and Faith (IVP, 2006).

3. Within pentecostal churches—the ecclesial tradition within which I have been a lifelong member and participant—we can find as many (if not more) complementarians as egalitarians, certainly in practice; for egalitarian arguments, see Estrelda Alexander and Amos Yong,

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eds., Philip’s Daughters: Women in Pentecostal-Charismatic Leadership, Princeton Theological Monographs Series 104 (Pickwick, 2009).

4. I have edited one book on pentecostal-charismatic Christianity and gender (see above footnote) and written a number of essays on race, generally as an Asian American and not necessarily specifically from an East Asian perspective: “Race and Racialization in a PostRacist Evangelicalism: A View from Asian America,” in Anthony B. Bradley, ed., Aliens in the Promised Land: Why Minority Leadership Is Overlooked in White Christian Churches and Institutions (P&R, 2013) 45–58 and 216–20, and “Mission after Colonialism and Whiteness: The Pentecost Witness of the ‘Perpetual Foreigner’ for the Third Millennium,” in Love L. Sechrest, Johnny Ramírez-Johnson, and Amos Yong, eds., Can “White” People Be Saved? Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission, Missiological Engagements (IVP Academic, 2018) 301–17.

5. My doctoral coursework in religious studies, including the study of core texts in Confucian and Daoist wisdom traditions, launched me as a comparative theologian; see my books, Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue: Does the Spirit Blow through the Middle Way? Studies in Systematic Theology 11 (Brill, 2012), and The Cosmic Breath: Spirit and Nature in the Christianity-Buddhism-Science Trialogue, Philosophical Studies in Science & Religion 4 (Brill, 2012).

6. For instance, my Fuller Seminary colleague, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, 5 vols. (Eerdmans, 2013–2018).

7. My earliest work was devoted to this line of inquiry; for an early crystallization of my argument on this front, see my The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology (Baker Academic, 2005) chs. 4–5.

8. Unless otherwise noted, all scriptural quotations will be from the New Revised Standard Version.

9. In my discussion of this section of Isaiah, called “Third Isaiah” by many scholars of that prophecy, I have suggested that 61:1–2, and 61:1–9 more generally “is the pivot upon which the visions of the restored Jerusalem turn (60:1–22 and 61:10–62:12), and is the hinge around which the judgment (chaps. 56–59) and redemption (chaps.

63–66) of Yahweh are thereby also achieved to the ends of the earth”; see my Mission after Pentecost: The Witness of the Spirit from Genesis to Revelation, Mission in Global Community (Baker Academic, 2019) 129.

10. Those familiar with my work will not be surprised at my Day of Pentecost starting point; I have developed such a Pentecost hermeneutic in my The Hermeneutical Spirit: Theological Interpretation and the Scriptural Imagination for the 21st Century (Cascade, 2017).

11. Luke in general and the Acts account more specifically are surely not egalitarian by modern standards – on this point see, Mitzi J. Smith, The Literary Construction of the Other in the Acts of the Apostles: Charismatics, the Jews, and Women (Pickwick, 2011) chs. 3–4 – but ours is a theological reading that exploits exegetical openings, and it is the latter that I am highlighting in this discussion.

12. Which was my primordial theological concern, dating back to my doctoral thesis: Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal-Charismatic Contribution to Christian Theology of Religions, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series 20 (Sheffield Academic, 2000; reprint, with a new “Preface”: Wipf & Stock, 2018).

13. See in my books on Buddhist-Christian dialogue and also in my The Future of Evangelical Theology: Soundings from the Asian American Diaspora (IVP Academic, 2014).

14. Much work needs to be done; a retrieval of classical East Asian sources, which are still predominantly those of men whose writings were deemed more valid for preservation than of women, gives us some insight into women’s lives and fortunes historically. See Kang-I Sun Chang and Haun Saussy, eds., Women Writers of Traditional

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China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism (Stanford University Press, 2000).

15. See also Anne Behnke Kinney, “Women in the Analects,” in Paul R. Goldin, ed., A Concise Companion to Confucius (John Wiley, 2017) 148–63.

16. Liji 9.3.10; see Robin R. Wang, ed., Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period through the Song Dynasty (Hackett, 2003) 53.

17. For discussion, see Lijun Yuan, Confucian Ren and Feminist Ethics of Care: Integrating Relational Self, Power, and Democracy (Lexington, 2019) ch. 1.

18. Even scholars who urge that the Confucian tradition is not monolithic grant that East Asian filial piety and gender patriarchalism are embedded within the social hierarchy relating family and state at their appropriate levels; see the editor’s “Introduction” to Dorothy Ko, JaHyun Kim Haboush, and Joan R. Piggott, eds., Women and Confucian Cultures in Premodern China, Korea, and Japan (University of California Press, 2003) 8.

19. For more on the Yīnyángjiā, see Fung Yu-Lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, ed. Derk Bodde (Free, 1966) ch. 12; cf. A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Dao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Open Court, 1989) 315–70.

20. Wing-tsit Chan, trans., A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton University Press, 1963) 244, in the discussion at the beginning of his chapter 11 on “The Yin Yang School.” Although yang and yin are correlatable with male and female generally, J. C. Cooper, Yin and Yang: The Taoist Harmony of Opposites (Aquarian, 1981) 14, notes that these “are only one aspect among endless others – [chiefly] passive and active, receptive and creatives forces in Nature – which can subdivide again and again.”

21. There is much more that can and should be said about chi in an essay that suggests a Pentecost and pneumatological approach to issues of race and gender in dialogue with East Asian sources, but that has to be deferred for the moment; those interested in assessing the state of the chi discussion in intercultural perspective can consult Grace Ji-Sun Kim, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) 14–16, and Koo Dong Yun, The Holy Spirit and Ch'i (Qi: A Chialogical Approach to Pneumatology (Pickwick, 2012); also, note Hyo-Dong Lee, Spirit, Qi, and the Multitude: A Comparative Theology for the Democracy of Creation (Fordham University Press, 2014) 4.

22. A. C. Graham, Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking, rev. ed. (Quirin, 2016) 43.

23. Graham, Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking, 166.

24. Jung Young Lee, The Trinity in Asian Perspective (Abingdon, 1996) 27; for Lee, in the West, change is a function of being, but in yinyang cosmology, being is a function of change.

25. Bo Mou, “Becoming-Being Complementarity: An Account of the Yin-Yang Metaphysical Vision of the Yi-Jing,” in Bo Mou, ed., Comparative Approaches to Chinese Philosophy (Ashgate, 2003) 86–96, at 94.

26. Lee, The Trinity in Asian Perspective, 32–33.

27. I put it this way in part because, as Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn, Women in Daoism, 2nd ed. (Three Pines, 2011) 246, put it with regard to the yin-female correlation: “Since they represent half of the cosmic powers, women have the ability to run households, manage affairs, supervise palaces, and take on major responsibilities.”

28. Lee, The Trinity in Asian Perspective, 31. Or, put alternatively, it is the socio-cultural contextual expectations and performances that determines yin or yang; see Robin R. Wang, “Yinyang Gender Dynamics: Lived Bodies, Rhythmical Changes, and Cultural Performances,” in Ann

Priscilla Papers | 34/3 | Summer 2020 • 25

A. Pang-White, ed., The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy and Gender (Bloomsbury, 2016) 205–28.

29. Lijun Yuan, Reconfiguring Women’s Equality in China: A Critical Examination of Models of Sex Equality (Lexington, 2005) 19, 20.

30. Despeux and Kohn, Women in Daoism, 6.

31. See the introduction to Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng, eds., Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History (University of California Press, 2001) 1–8, esp. 3–4, along with ch. 1 of this volume: “Biography of the Daoist Saint Wang Fengxian by Du Guangting (850– 933),” trans. Suzanne Cahill, 17–28, at 20.

32. See Young Lee Hertig, The Tao of Asian American Belonging: A Yinist Spirituality (Orbis, 2019) ch. 1.

33. But even conservative evangelicals who would be very cautious about the deployment of the yin-yang cosmology because it may in some articulations deny the qualitative chasm between God and creation are open to considering this Daoist formulation vis-à-vis male-female relations; see Morris A. Inch, Doing Theology across Cultures (Baker, 1982) ch. 5.

34. Which have been already forged, e.g., by Heup Young Kim, Christ and the Tao (Christian Conference of Asia, 2003).

35. Gordon D. Fee, Galatians: A Pentecostal Commentary (Deo, 2007) 141.

36. Yeo Khiok-khng, What Has Jerusalem to do with Beijing? Biblical Interpretation from a Chinese Perspective (Trinity, 1998) ch. 2.

37. Craig S. Keener, Galatians: A Commentary (Baker Academic, 2019) 308–9; emphasis Keener’s.

38. See Yeo What Has Jerusalem to do with Beijing?, 58–64.

39. E.g., Greg W. Forbes and Scott D. Harrower, Raised from Obscurity: A Narratival and Theological Study of the Characterization of Women in Luke-Acts (James Clarke, 2016); cf. Leah Payne, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism: Making a Female Ministry in the Early Twentieth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

40. See also Tat-siong Benny Liew, What is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? Reading the New Testament (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008) ch. 2, which unfolds his own proposal for a yin-yang hermeneutic, although Liew uses yin-and-yang more as a rhetorical trope than he engages the notion historically or metaphysically.

AMOS YONG is Dean of the School of Theology and the School of Intercultural Studies and Professor of Theology and Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary. He holds master’s degrees from Western Evangelical Seminary and Portland State University and a PhD from Boston University.

Amos is prolific in his publishing and public speaking, as well as in his service to both academy and church.

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Priscilla Papers | 34/3 | Summer 2020 • 27

Book Review

The Gospel According to Eve: A History of Women’s Interpretation

By Amanda W. Benckhuysen (InterVarsity, 2019) Reviewed by Allison M. Quient

The gospel is indeed good news for women. However, as Dr. Amanda W. Benckhuysen observes, it also “tends to come to women with strings attached.” Men may be free in Christ, yet “women assume the yoke of a new law—restrictions and requirements assigned to them” by virtue of their gendered status as the “weaker vessel.” To depart from this gender ideology “is to reject God’s divine commands and undermine the authority of God’s Word, the Bible” (1–2).

Yet not everyone, and certainly not the female interpreters this book surveys, agrees that the Bible teaches that women are the weaker vessel. The strengths of The Gospel According to Eve are that it makes the interpretive insights of numerous women accessible and gives attention to how women have challenged the way Eve has been viewed as archetypal for all women.

Although Eve has predominantly been interpreted as a negative representative for all women, this has not been without dissent.

This book provides a sampling of female interpreters, primarily from the Christian West, ranging from the fourth to the twenty-first century and, secondarily, interacts with some of the influential interpreters or interpretations from their time.

While not all interpretations presented are uniform or “feminist,” reading about centuries of interpretation makes it evident that each generation of women interpreters has had to reinvent the interpretive wheel, arriving at many similar, yet independent, female-friendly conclusions. Toward the end of the book, readers are presented with a woman’s representation of Eve and an “alternative reading of Scripture, reflected in the voices of women and their interaction with Genesis 1–3” (2).

The Gospel According to Eve, as well as works such as the Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters,1 are necessary in the quest to overcome the neglect of female voices in biblical interpretation. One cannot help but wonder what further interpretive and theological reflective insights could have been possible if each generation were aware of the women who came before them. And one can only consider what sorts of reflection could have been possible if others also shared the keen awareness that these women were indeed approaching the Bible with particular lenses, a human phenomenon that is not unique to women (231).

However, despite what one might expect from the title, this work gives only minimal attention to two major historical interpretive trends regarding Eve: 1) her perceived typological connection to Mary,2 and 2) the influence of the interpretation of 1 Tim 2:11–15 on the figure of Eve and women generally. The latter is a dominant interpretive influence that is not merely confined to a few churches in the present (109), yet there is sparse focus on how women have interpreted the Eve of 1 Timothy in relation to Genesis. When there is coverage, it is frequently incidental.

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Eve’s typological connection with Mary has served as a crucial counterbalance to otherwise thoroughly negative interpretations of Eve (and women) throughout the centuries.3 Without Mary also informing how predecessors, both male and female, perceived female nature, one is left with a picture that is not altogether complete or accurate for interpretations of the time.

“The rehabilitation of Eve in light of her virtuous counterpart, Mary, is one way of redressing what many have thought to be the worst effect of the story of the Fall: the preponderance of blame was pinned on a woman.”4 The Mary-Eve parallel functioned to further illuminate and expand the identity of Eve5 in ways similar to, yet perhaps somewhat disjointed from,6 how a Christ-Adam parallel furthered the identity of what a person could be in light of the work of Christ.

Further, there is disparity throughout the book; some interpreters receive notably more detailed treatment than others do. There is also more attention given to female interpreters in the nineteenth century (though perhaps they were more numerous at that time) than, say, the Renaissance or Reformation. Still, the strength of this book is its readable syntheses of various female interpreters and, by extension, the resulting questioning of some of our own interpretive assumptions.

Critiques aside, The Gospel According to Eve is a valuable resource for any egalitarian to have in their library. I also recommend it as assigned reading as part of a larger treatment or course on the history of interpretation.

Notes 1. Marion Ann Taylor and Agnes Choi, eds., Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters: A Historical and Biographical Guide (Baker, 2012).

2. There is a brief mention of this from Sojourner Truth on p. 189.

3. Cf. Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (Yale University Press, 1996).

4. Gary A. Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Westminster John Knox, 2001) 99.

5. Anderson, Genesis of Perfection, 16.

6. Benjamin H. Dunning, Christ without Adam: Subjectivity and Sexual Difference in the Philosopher’s Paul (Columbia University Press, 2014) 98.

ALLISON QUIENT holds an MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a ThM from Fuller Theological Seminary, and is a PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland) in the areas of NT studies and systematic theology. She and her husband, Nick, co-manage an online repository of ministry and academic resources at SplitFrameOfReference.com.

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Book Review

Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts

By Andrew Bartlett (InterVarsity, 2019) Reviewed by Laura Spicer Martin

Andrew Bartlett’s Men and Women in Christ is a tremendously helpful contribution to the debate that rages in evangelicalism over the “roles” of women. Bartlett is concerned that the sharp divide between complementarian and egalitarian viewpoints has harmed the unity and witness of the church. He has a degree in theology, but his career has been in the field of law and his specialty has become arbitration. A judge or arbitrator is different from a lawyer. A lawyer represents one side, but an arbitrator seeks to be neutral, listens to both sides, and must go where the evidence leads. Most books are written more like a lawyer defending one side, but Bartlett has stepped back, assessed both sides as neutrally or objectively as possible, and shared his conclusions. That is what makes the book unique.

Bartlett interacts a lot with the writings of Wayne Grudem on the complementarian side and those of Philip Payne on the egalitarian side, since these individuals are prominent representatives of their respective positions. However, Bartlett focuses less on their disagreements with each other and more on whether their proposed interpretations accurately reflect Scripture. He uses what he calls seven tools to properly interpret Scripture: primacy of Scripture over tradition, paying appropriate attention to culture, going back to the source language in context, coherence, a Christ-centered canonical approach, spiritual openness, and practical wisdom (see Appendix 1).

No one should accuse Bartlett of not being thorough. Some key passages (1 Cor 11, 1 Cor 14, Eph 5) receive two chapters or even three (1 Tim 2). Whereas a lawyer approach would tend to gloss over certain evidence, his arbitrator approach leaves no stone unturned. For example, in ch. 2 he notes: “Despite the prominence of 1 Corinthians 7 as the longest discussion of marriage in the New Testament . . . complementarian analyses have tended to overlook it or downplay it” (29). A deserved criticism! Maybe complementarians tend to do so because “the hammer of 1 Corinthians 7 breaks into pieces the rock of marital hierarchy” (28). Bartlett is not willing to overlook or downplay passages.

Neither should anyone accuse Bartlett of not being clear. He is a careful thinker and writer. The end of every chapter has a succinct, numbered summary of the key points of the chapter.

He explains the direction he is headed and his reasoning as he unpacks a passage.

Because of the clear writing and explanations, this book is accessible to the interested lay person, but I think it would be overwhelming to someone new to the debate. I have read exceptional books on this issue (such as titles by Payne, Craig Keener, and Cynthia Westfall) but Bartlett will now be the book I most highly recommend for a combination of reasons, such as its readability, thoroughness—both mentioned above—and also its diplomacy.

Regarding diplomacy, the beginning of the book emphasizes that Bartlett wants to help bridge the divide between

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complementarians and egalitarians, that both sides must be open to critique, and that he would indeed critique both sides as the book progresses. I believe Bartlett has lived up to this claim of fairness. When he critiques a certain position or interpretation, you cannot accuse him of unfairly doing so. He is not nitpicking, but is demonstrating the validity or significance of his concern about a certain interpretation. Sometimes Bartlett finds problems with both complementarian and egalitarian arguments and provides fresh insight or takes a new approach—in particular with 1 Tim 2. He also implores both sides to stop certain unfair representations of the other side’s positions or motives, and instead to work to move closer together. Indeed, certain people on both sides can be guilty of polarizing distortions.

Bartlett says that some of his own opinions changed as he researched and wrote this book, as he followed the evidence wherever it led him. In ch. 1, he forecasts that the conclusion of the book “will be that the complementarian and egalitarian positions are each partly correct and partly mistaken” (16).

In a general sense this is accurate, as he occasionally points out strengths and weaknesses in the arguments of both sides.

However, I would instead describe the book’s conclusions this way: The complementarian position is a little correct and mostly mistaken, and the egalitarian position is mostly correct and a little mistaken.

At this point, I will shift from a general description of the book to specific comments on two topics I found particularly valuable—Priscilla’s authority and the word “helper” (ezer) in Gen 2:18.

Priscilla’s Authority A number of books rightly point out that we can overlook Priscilla’s important position in the early church. Bartlett, however, powerfully brought this home for me, particularly in regard to authority. (Some draw a line between authoritative and non-authoritative teaching in the church by women, forbidding them from so-called authoritative teaching.) Here are two excerpts from Bartlett: With her husband, Priscilla corrected Apollos, a prominent male preacher, and taught him the way of God more accurately . . . (Acts 18:26). Paul commends Priscilla as one of his co-workers (Rom. 16:3–4). Luke considered Priscilla’s correction of Apollos sufficiently important to include it in his short history. Teaching Apollos was no minor task. He was a forceful public exponent of the gospel, with an expansive ministry (Acts 18:24–28). When he moved on to Corinth, his ministry there was more influential with some believers even than Paul’s (1 Cor. 1:12). Calvin admits: “we see that one of the chief teachers of the Church was instructed by a woman.” (207)

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The example of Priscilla’s teaching of Apollos is about as authoritative as one may imagine. As we have seen, with her husband, as co-host of the local congregation in Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:8, 19), she corrects the doctrinal understanding of one of the chief teachers of the church.

If authoritative teaching is a special category, Priscilla is doing it. (227) In a culture where patriarchy was pronounced, Priscilla did not disappear into the shadows behind her husband. To make this personal to our own day, think of a prominent and respected man in your own denomination or circle of Christianity, and now think of a woman teaching him, even correcting him. How would this go? Sadly, I know too many evangelicals who would have a multitude of concerns about this scenario.

Genesis 2:18 Genesis 2:18 refers to Eve as a helper (ezer) to Adam, and unfortunately “helper” has certain connotations in the English language that create misunderstanding. The woman is perceived as the assistant to the man, who is the leader or boss. Yet in Hebrew, ezer does not require this meaning or implication. I love the phrase Bartlett uses for the meaning of ezer: powerful ally!

“Powerful ally” comes across rather differently than “helper.”

Here is an excerpt from the book: In English we commonly think of a helper as a subordinate or junior assistant. This connotation is lacking from the Hebrew word ezer, which carries the idea of strength and is here [Gen 2:18] translated as helper. It refers to a military protector in Isaiah 30:5. . . .

It refers to God as strength and help in numerous texts.

For example, Deuteronomy 33:26 refers to God riding across the heavens to help, and . . . in Deuteronomy 33:29 God is Israel’s shield and help and glorious sword; in Psalms 121 and 124 Israel’s help comes from the Maker of heaven and earth. In these Scriptures God is depicted as a powerfully ally for needy Israel; in none of them is there any sense of God adopting a subordinate role, such that Israel is God’s leader. The natural reading of Genesis 2 in Hebrew is therefore that woman is made to be man’s powerful ally. There is no implication that she is his junior assistant. (76, bold added) It would be absurd to think, because God is a helper to Israel, that Israel is the boss of God or that God falls under the authority of Israel! Neither should we make such a conclusion about the male/female relationship.

Some go to great lengths to find gender hierarchy (evidence that the man is the leader) in Gen 1 and 2. But it is not there! It is forced upon the text. Bartlett carefully looks at the arguments some complementarians offer for male headship in Gen 1 and 2.

As he does this, he repeats comments such as: “But this is mere assertion, with no basis in the text.”

“The text does not say this.”

“But this again lacks a basis in the text.”

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force it upon the text, seeing what is not there, making false or unprovable assumptions. Bartlett’s hypothetical inversion of this tendency is creative and powerful: Let us suppose someone were wanting to establish that women are ordained by God to be the leaders of men.

They could easily use the same kinds of arguments from implications that complementarians use, proceeding as follows: • In Genesis 2 the woman is described as the man’s ezer.

• Even some complementarian scholars accept that to be an ezer (strength or helper) does not imply subordination. God is Israel’s ezer. The usual implication is that the ezer is more powerful than the needy one who receives the help.

• We see in the narrative that the woman is made for the man because of his inadequacy and need, that is, he is alone and needs help.

• Genesis 2 is adding further detail to the order of creation presented in Genesis 1 in which mankind is created last; it presents the woman as formed last of all, the pinnacle of God’s beautiful creation.

• Therefore it is implied that the woman was originally intended to be the strong leader of the man.

• This understanding also sheds light on Genesis 3:16; in the Fall, woman misuses her leadership; therefore it is taken away from her and given to the man instead.

But no-one would be convinced. The argument would not persuade anyone who did not have a prior commitment to women’s leadership of men. (83–84, bold added) In this brilliant and even comical hypothetical trajectory, Bartlett demonstrates how baseless the complementarian arguments are by using their same approach, but adjusted to insert female rule into Gen 1 and 2.

Conclusion In the end, Bartlett’s final position is fully egalitarian in the church setting, and partly egalitarian and partly complementarian in the marriage setting.

Some will claim that Bartlett was an egalitarian in disguise and tricked his readers by this so-called arbitrator approach. If you actually read the book, however, I do not see how you could possibly come to that conclusion. My recommendation is that Men and Women in Christ is worth your time and effort.

LAURA SPICER MARTIN holds a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. Visit her blog at LightEnough.wordpress.com.

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CBE International CBE International (CBE) is a nonprofit organization of Christian men and women who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of men and women of all ethnic groups, all economic classes, and all age groups, based on the teachings of Scriptures such as Galatians 3:28.

Mission Statement CBE exists to promote the biblical message that God calls women and men of all cultures, races and classes to share authority equally in service and leadership in the home, church and world. Our mission is to eliminate the power imbalance between men and women resulting from theological patriarchy.

Statement of Faith • We believe in one God, creator and sustainer of the universe, eternally existing as three persons equal in power and glory.

• We believe in the full deity and the full humanity of Jesus Christ.

• We believe that eternal salvation and restored relationships are only possible through faith in Jesus Christ who died for us, rose from the dead, and is coming again. This salvation is offered to all people.

• We believe the Holy Spirit equips us for service and sanctifies us from sin.

• We believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, is reliable, and is the final authority for faith and practice.

• We believe that women and men are equally created in God’s image and given equal authority and stewardship of God’s creation.

• We believe that men and women are equally responsible for and distorted by sin, resulting in shattered relationships with God, self, and others.

Core Values • Scripture is our authoritative guide for faith, life, and practice.

• Patriarchy (male dominance) is not a biblical ideal but a result of sin.

• Patriarchy is an abuse of power, taking from females what God has given them: their dignity, and freedom, their leadership, and often their very lives.

• While the Bible reflects patriarchal culture, the Bible does not teach patriarchy in human relationships. cbeinternational.org

• Christ’s redemptive work frees all people from patriarchy, calling women and men to share authority equally in service and leadership.

• God’s design for relationships includes faithful marriage between a man and a woman, celibate singleness and mutual submission in Christian community.

• The unrestricted use of women’s gifts is integral to the work of the Holy Spirit and essential for the advancement of the gospel in the world.

• Followers of Christ are to oppose injustice and patriarchal teachings and practices that marginalize and abuse females and males.

Envisioned Future CBE envisions a future where all believers are freed to exercise their gifts for God’s glory and purposes, with the full support of their Christian communities.

CBE Membership CBE is pleased to make available, for free, every Priscilla Papers article ever published. In addition, find the full archive of CBE’s magazine, Mutuality, and hundreds of book reviews and recordings of lectures given by worldrenowned scholars like N.T. Wright, Gordon Fee, and more!

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CBE Board of Reference Miriam Adeney, Myron S. Augsburger, Raymond J. Bakke, Michael Bird, Esme Bowers, Paul Chilcote, Havilah Dharamraj, Gordon D. Fee, J. Lee Grady, Joel B. Green, David Joel Hamilton, Fatuma Hashi, Roberta Hestenes, Richard Howell, Craig S. Keener, Tara B. Leach, Gricel Medina, Joy Moore, LaDonna Osborn, Jane Overstreet, Philip B. Payne, John E. Phelan Jr., Ron Pierce, Kay F. Rader, Paul A. Rader, Ronald J. Sider, Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer, John Stackhouse, Todd Still, Ruth A. Tucker, Cynthia Long Westfall, Cecilia Yau. Priscilla Papers | 34/3 | Summer 2020 • 31

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The Gospel According to Eve A History of Women’s Interpretation Amanda W. Benckhuysen

The Headship of Men and the Abuse of Women Are They Related in Any Way? Kevin Giles

The Gospel According to Eve traces the history of women’s interpretation of Genesis 1–3, readings of Scripture that affirmed women’s full humanity and equal worth.

Biblical scholar Amanda Benckhuysen allows the voices of women from the past to speak of Eve’s story and its implications for marriage, motherhood, preaching, ministry, education, work, voting, and more.

Kevin Giles competently surveys the available scientific information on this matter and notes the consensus: the surest indicator of higher incidences of abuse are found in communities where men are privileged and expected to be in charge and women are subordinated.

This, he argues, should make complementarians consider afresh if in fact the subordination of women is the God-given ideal, established in creation before the fall.

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Men and Women in Christ Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts Andrew Bartlett Andrew Bartlett makes use of his experience as a judge and arbitrator in assessing the debate, with impartiality rather than advocacy (like a barrister). In a very thorough but accessible analysis, he engages with exemplars of each view and with all the key biblical texts. He partly agrees and partly disagrees with both sides, and offers fresh insights into interpretation of the texts.

He seeks progress toward healing a sharp division.

Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry Ruth Haley Barton

Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership explores topics such as responding to the dynamics of calling, facing the loneliness of leadership, and cultivating spiritual community. Each chapter includes a spiritual practice to ensure your soul gets the nourishment it needs.

Forging and maintaining a life-giving connection with God is the best choice you can make for yourself and for those you lead.

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