"And bring the books..."

P

riscilla

The academic journal of

P

apers Vol 35, No 2 | Spring 2021

CBE International “And bring the

books . . .”

3 Kephale¯ is a Body Part:

Unified Interdependence in Relationship in Ephesians 5 Christy Hemphill

Book Reviews

10 The Making of Biblical

Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, by Beth Allison Barr | Reviewed by Kelly Schmidt

13 Seven Transforming Gifts of

Menopause: An Unexpected Spiritual Journey, by Cheryl Bridges Johns | Reviewed by Patty

Craft

14 The Headship of Men and the

Abuse of Women: Are They Related in Any Way?, by Kevin Giles | Reviewed by Jonathan Tysick 16 Christian Egalitarian Leadership: Empowering the Whole Church according to the Scriptures, ed.

by Aída Besançon Spencer and William David Spencer | Reviewed by Jeff Miller

18 Marriage in the Middle:

Embracing Midlife Surprises, Challenges, and Joys, by Dorothy Littell Greco | Reviewed by Margaret English de Alminana

19 Systematic Theology: An

Introduction to Biblical Doctrine,

by Wayne Grudem | Reviewed by Allison Quient and Nicholas Quient

23 Complementarianism

Collapsing: An Extended Review of Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit | Kevin Giles

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

I Tertius . . .

The cover of this issue of Priscilla Papers shows Rembrandt’s depiction of the Apostle Paul poring over a book. In 2 Timothy 4:13, the verse that provides this issue’s theme, Paul asks Timothy, “. . . and bring the books.”

I just looked at a recent issue of a theological journal, sitting on my shelf within arm’s reach, to see how many book reviews it contains: forty-six. This is several more than the thirty published in Priscilla Papers since I became editor in the autumn of 2014.

One purpose of this issue is to inform our readers that the books reviewed in Priscilla Papers are not the only ones CBE International reviews. The fuller bookreview collection is in the “Resources” drop-down menu at CBEInternational.org. There you will find Dr. Sue Bailey’s review of Diane Langberg’s Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church (Brazos, 2020), Dr. Mimi Haddad’s review of William Witt’s Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination (Baylor, 2020), and many more.

It seems there has been a recent flourishing of egalitarian publishing, and it’s hard to keep up! Below is a partial list of recent books that might pique your interest—but first I should be clear that not everything in this issue is a book review. Instead, we begin with an article on Ephesians 5 that will be a game-changer for many readers’ thinking about headship.

• Alicia J. Batten and Kelly Olson, eds., Dress in Mediterranean Antiquity: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians (Bloomsbury, 2021).

• Jaime Clark-Soles, Women in the Bible (WJK, 2020).

• Lynn Japinga, From Widows to Warriors: Women’s Stories from the Old Testament (WJK, 2020) and From Daughters to Disciples: Women’s Stories from the New Testament (WJK, 2021).

• Dan Kimball, How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Proslavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture (Zondervan, 2020).

• Katie Lauve-Moon, Preacher Woman: A Critical Look at Sexism without Sexists (Oxford University Press, 2021).

• Dorothy A. Lee, The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership (Baker, 2021).

• Ronald W. Pierce, Cynthia Long Westfall, and Christa L. McKirland, eds., Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural, and Practical Perspectives, 3rd ed.

(InterVarsity Academic, forthcoming in November 2021).

• Susanne Scholz, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 2020).

• Karen Strand Winslow, Imagining Equity: The Gifts of Christian Feminist Theology (Wesley’s Foundery Books, 2021).

One more thing: If you are interested in reviewing books for CBE, contact Elizabeth Beyer at EBeyer@ CBEInternational.org to find out what that entails.

. . . 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: Katrina Armas, 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: Apostle Paul by Rembrandt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 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, 2021.

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Kephalē is a Body Part: Unified Interdependence in Relationship in Ephesians 5 Christy Hemphill

the underlying conceptual metaphors that give rise to the figurative language used by Jesus and the NT authors can help In the spring of 2015, I listened to my NT Greek professor explain us hypothesize better about the shared cognitive environment different interpretive approaches to “For the husband is the head that would have shaped the discourse and guided the inferences [kephalē] of the wife as Christ is the head [kephalē] of the church, of the audience of Ephesians. This helps us get closer to what his body, of which he is the Savior” (Eph 5:23 NIV). He explained they likely inferred when they processed the metaphor “the that some people think kephalē means “authority” and some husband is the head of the wife.” people think it means “source.” His comments echoed what I The word-level approach to analyzing the meaning of Eph 5:23 had heard in almost every treatment of Eph 5:23 I had read. Such that seems to prevail among Bible scholars misses the cognitive treatments turn on lexical studies context and explanatory power of kephalē and the figurative The primary exegetical task when of the conceptual metaphor, senses available for the word in unity is a whole body, Koine Greek.1 I asked why no one considering the assertion “the husband underlying Eph 5 (conceptual argued for the clear primary sense is the head of the wife” should be metaphors and the use of small of kephalē, the body part, since it discovering the meaning of this headcapitals to express them are is clear “head” is being used in a and-body metaphor, not arguing for an explained below). Furthermore, body metaphor.2 Body metaphors extended metaphorical sense of half of word-level arguments over are prevalent in Paul’s letters, and figurative senses of kephalē metaphors generally rely on the the metaphor—the single word, kephalē. have been marshaled to support primary senses of words. I did unfortunate doctrinal assertions such as male headship in the not get a satisfying answer then, and I continue to encounter home and church and, more recently, the eternal subordination arguments about “headship” that begin or end with positing of the Son of God.3 This flawed approach to metaphor should one or another figurative sense of kephalē without offering any have been questioned as linguistically dubious long before so rationale why the primary sense, a body part, functioning quite many pages were dedicated to arguing over which figurative normally in a metaphor is not considered as a possibility. sense of kephalē is preferred and what the choice of “authority” It is a mistake to focus on word-level or sentence-level or “source” implies about the Trinity. We should instead arguments in discussing Eph 5:21–33 (and other kephalē passages), reframe the debate concerning Eph 5:21–33 and related figurative instead of appealing to relevant discourse-level features of the language in Paul’s letters around understanding the meaning of text and what we know about how people process the figurative the metaphors. This discourse-level approach reveals an intent meaning of metaphors. The primary exegetical task when to communicate about unified interdependence in relationship, considering the assertion “the husband is the head of the wife” not about authority. should be discovering the meaning of this head-and-body Shifting from a Sentence-Level Focus to a Discourse-Level metaphor, not arguing for an extended metaphorical sense of half Focus of the metaphor—the single word, kephalē. Insights from discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics (described below) could reframe Linguistic analysis happens at various levels, starting with the discussion of debated passages like Eph 5:21–33, where the the sounds that make up a language (phonemes), then the context and figurative meaning are central to the interpretation. units of meaning that are put together to make words and This article will describe certain differences between use them grammatically (morphemes), then complete words word-level or sentence-level approaches and discourse-level (lexemes), then words put together in sentences (syntax), and approaches to meaning and will explain why discourse-level finally sentences put together into whole texts (discourse). The approaches are often more appropriate when considering discipline of discourse analysis is a branch of linguistics whose debated passages. Then we will explore how human brains relevance to biblical interpretation is increasingly recognized. process the figurative meaning of metaphors. We will see how Discourse analysis attempts to move beyond word meaning cognitive linguists approach metaphors, not merely as words or and even syntax to address “pragmatics.” Pragmatics refers to phrases, but as conceptual tools that underlie language and help aspects of meaning that are inferred from the shared context us understand abstract ideas. Multiple passages in Scripture of the speaker and hearer and cannot be calculated based on about the relationship of Christ to his people and of the members individual word meanings and grammatical constructions. In of the church to one another rely on underlying conceptual other words, discourse analysis looks at how texts function in metaphors to explain interdependence and unity. Identifying their communicative context.

Reframing the Debate over Figurative Meaning

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Conservative biblical interpretation in the twentieth century tended to assume the code model of communication. In this model, the intended meaning of the speaker or author is seen as encoded in specific word choices and grammatical structures, and it is assumed that any hearer or reader who knows the words and the grammar can decode the intended meaning. Consequently, Bible scholars paid the most attention to the immediate linguistic context of a passage—the specific words (their etymology and range of meaning) along with the grammatical features of the sentences the words comprised. However, the prevailing paradigm in communication theory is no longer the code model, and linguists now lean toward the inference model of communication.4 In this model, words are triggers that activate a person’s knowledge, memories, and beliefs. Speakers rely on the common ground they share with their hearers (concepts, cultural frames, linguistic conventions, contexts) to guide the inferences the hearers make about the intended meaning. These inferences work in predictable ways, based on commonalities. Within this model of communication, focus is not on the individual words and grammar structures. The context in focus is the cognitive environment of the speaker and hearers—all the common ground they rely on to make the proper inferences. With this shift in understanding regarding what context is in focus, much more attention must be dedicated to discourse-level features of the text, since this is where many clues about the shared common ground and intended inferences can be found.

Sentence-level versus discourse-level approaches to meaning are at the heart of many interpretation debates. Those who want to demote Junia in Rom 16:7 to something less than an apostle focus their attention on the meaning of the word apostolois (“apostles”) or grammatical structures involving the preposition en (“in, among, by”). Those arguing for Junia’s fullfledged apostleship take into consideration lexical arguments, but they also look at discourse-level features of how Paul talks about his female co-laborers across multiple biblical texts and try to determine how that broader context should inform inferences about the meaning of the specific greeting in Rom 16:7. Arguments claiming Phoebe was not a church leader tend to center on the best translations of diakonos (“servant, deacon”) or prostatis (“patron, helper, leader”) and what those individual words connote—authority, office, role. Counter arguments may address these word-level issues, but they also focus on the entire discourse context of Romans and what inferences would be drawn about the authority and role of a commended letter-carrier in that culture. Proponents of exclusively female submission in marriage tend to focus on the meaning of the verb hypotassō (“submit, yield”) in Eph 5, Col 3, and 1 Pet 3. A discourse-level approach to the same passages not only takes into consideration the connotations of the verb, but also the function of household codes in the first-century context and how the biblical texts appropriate that genre. The focus is on the shared cultural context of hearers familiar with household codes, and what they would have inferred was most relevant when they heard how Paul and Peter adapted them.

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David deSilva, writing about the kinds of word studies and lexical analysis that students learn in seminary, offers this observation about the frequent disconnect between exegesis and linguistics.

The study of the meaning of words, however, has often proceeded in isolation from the science of language (linguistics), with the result that some basic fallacies have become endemic to the very word-study enterprise.5 deSilva goes on to explain that one of these endemic problems is that individual words are routinely made to bear the weight of concepts that are generated not by the word (and hence are not ‘meanings’ of the word) but by the discourse surrounding the word.6 When it comes to most discussions of Eph 5:21–23, both egalitarian and hierarchical interpretations get mired in sentence-level semantic debates that start with the premise that if we can uncover the correct figurative sense of the word kephalē, then we should be able to calculate the correct meaning of “the husband is the head of the wife.” But we should instead put aside the outdated code model of communication, learn from the science of cognitive linguistics about how the figurative meaning of metaphors is processed, and focus on the inferences the body metaphor in this passage might have triggered.7

How Metaphors Work Linguistically and Conceptually Figurative Meaning of Words versus Figurative Meaning of Metaphors Most discussions of Eph 5:23 center around the intended sense of kephalē, not the intended meaning of the body metaphor. So, a brief description of the distinction between figurative senses of words and figurative meanings of metaphors is in order. Many words have more than one meaning or “sense.” Over time, words for concrete things often develop additional abstract, figurative senses because they are repeatedly used in metaphorical expressions in the discourse of a community. The inferred figurative meaning of a conventionalized metaphorical expression eventually becomes associated with the word itself in some of its uses. In a dictionary or lexicon, the different senses of a word are listed in an entry together. For example, a typical dictionary entry for the word head in English would first list “the body part containing the eyes, nose, and mouth,” followed by “mind or brain,” “leader of a group,” and “unit of measurement.” The first meaning, the name of the body part, is the primary sense, or what some people call the “literal” meaning. The other meanings are figurative senses that are metaphorical extensions of the primary sense.

Bible scholars have put significant time and effort into cataloguing the set of figurative senses that developed from the body part kephalē in Koine Greek through the study of extrabiblical literature of the same time period. They claim these figurative senses include a leader in a position of authority and the source of something.8 After establishing that these figurative senses were available in the language, interpreters have gone on

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means a pastor who cares for a congregation. In Eph 4:11, the word poimēn is used in this figurative sense (“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers” [NIV, italics added]). No one argues that the list of vocations here includes literal sheep-tenders. But to understand Jesus’s metaphor and the figurative language in John 10, a person Some modern authors have disregarded the use of would indeed access the primary sense of poimēn, a person who kephalē as a metaphor. In their zeal to “prove” that takes care of sheep. The metaphor is processed by inferring points “source” or “authority” is a legitimate meaning of of correspondence between the conceptual domain associated kephalē in extra-biblical Greek, some have provided with herding sheep and the conceptual domain associated with citations of kephalē in other Greek authors where the Jesus and his followers. It is not necessary or helpful to appeal actual use of kephalē is in fact literal, not metaphorical.9 to the available figurative sense of the word poimēn that means How do people understand the figurative meaning of a “pastor” to understand the figurative meaning of the metaphor. metaphor if the words in the metaphor are not being used in In short, “I am the good pastor” is not a good English translation their metaphorical senses? Metaphors typically take the form of John 10:11, because it removes the metaphor and thus changes X is Y, where X and Y are dissimilar concepts with a salient the meaning. point of commonality. When the hearer infers from the shared As with poimēn in John 10:11, translators must make a context with the speaker that the “literal” meaning of the X judgment about the sense of kephalē in Eph 5:23 and decide is Y statement is not the intended meaning, they try to infer whether it is being used in its primary sense in a metaphor or the intended correspondence a figurative sense in a statement between the two concepts in that is not a metaphor. If it is order to process a relevant Translators must make a judgment about being used in its primary sense the sense of kephalē in Eph 5:23 and decide in a metaphor, the primary sense figurative meaning instead.

Metaphors typically make whether it is being used in its primary sense must be translated, thus retaining use of the primary sense of in a metaphor or a figurative sense in a the metaphor. If it is being used in words. If someone says, “His a figurative sense, the figurative face was an open book,” there statement that is not a metaphor. sense must be translated. Words is no need for an additional do not necessarily have the same figurative sense of the word book to exist for hearers to infer figurative senses in two different languages, and translators the intended meaning of the metaphor. Using a word in a need to find a word in the target language that expresses that metaphor does not automatically create a figurative sense for the meaning, as we saw with “pastor” instead of “shepherd” in Eph word. We would not include in the dictionary entry for book, 4:11. Several French Bible translations (NEG 1979 and LBT, for “where thoughts or emotions are visible so others can interpret example), make the husband in Eph 5:23 le chef (“leader”) of them” simply because the metaphor “his face was an open the wife, not la tête (“head”), thus removing the metaphor in book” is an understandable expression. The figurative meaning favor of translating a figurative sense of kephalē. Since there of the metaphor comparing a face to a book is not processed is indeed a metaphor, this is a translation error. Sometimes by accessing figurative meanings available for the word book. metaphors do not translate well, and the translators decide to In our minds, related ideas and experiences are organized remove the metaphor and render the meaning of the metaphor into bodies of knowledge that cognitive linguists refer to as directly.10 But if that were necessary in this case, the idea the “conceptual domains.” To understand the meaning, we make whole metaphor communicates should be translated—for a mental connection (a mapping) between two conceptual example, “The husband is one with the wife.” In contrast, “The domains. The mental image related to the primary sense of book husband is the leader of the wife” and “The husband is the source (within its associated conceptual domain that includes reading of the wife” are translations of figurative senses of kephalē, not to find out information) is linked to the mental image of the translations of the meaning of the metaphor.11 primary sense of face (within its associated conceptual domain If “the husband is the head of the wife” is a metaphor in Eph that includes facial expressions communicating emotions). The 5:23, then kephalē is used in its primary body part sense, and hearer infers the intended correspondence between a face and discussions establishing secondary senses that mean “authority” an open book—a face is something you can “read” to learn how or “source” are irrelevant, because those senses are not accessed someone feels. when processing the figurative meaning of the metaphor. The To further illustrate the distinction between figurative relevant question is what correspondence the original audience senses of words and figurative meaning of metaphors using an inferred between the conceptual domain of marriage and the example from Scripture, consider John 10:11. Jesus says, “I am conceptual domain of bodies. There are discourse-level reasons to the good shepherd.” The Koine Greek word poimēn (translated believe that “the husband is the head of the wife” is a metaphor, “shepherd”) has a primary sense that means a person who cares not a propositional assertion of the husband’s authority or for sheep. The word poimēn also has a figurative sense that to argue which figurative sense they believe should be attributed to the word used in Eph 5:23. Richard Cervin notes that, while collecting evidence to support their arguments, people have sometimes confused or conflated using a word in a metaphorical sense with using a word in a metaphor.

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domains stored in long-term memory), and linguists refer leadership over the wife and not an identification of the husband to them using small capitals in the form target domain is as the wife’s source, as would be the case if kephalē were being source domain. For example, a common conceptual metaphor used in one of its secondary senses. When we look at the passage, is anger is heat. Someone relying on this implicit conceptual we see an analogy to another familiar body metaphor in Eph metaphor might explain their emotions saying, “My feelings 5:23, 28 (the church is Christ’s body), and the ensuing discussion had been simmering under the surface for a while, but in that continues to refer to bodies. As Christ loves his body, the church, moment, they all started to boil over, and I blew my top.” They husbands are to love their bodies, their wives. Paul asserts that cannot communicate all of the same meaning with an image the body forms an integral whole with the headed self. He who metaphor like “My feelings were a pot of hot liquid.” If they try loves his wife (his own body) loves himself (Eph 5:28). to put the meaning into non-figurative, “literal” terms, “I was a The interdependence and unity of the head and the body as little angry for some time, but in that moment, I got really angry, an integral whole is emphasized by alluding to the establishment and then I acted out angrily,” they still lose some nuances of of marriage in Genesis where a man unites with a woman and the intended meaning. To process the figurative language and becomes one flesh (Gen 2:24, Eph 5:31). The final command in understand how anger works, the hearer Eph 5:33, “each one of you should love his wife as himself so that the wife can honor/ Paul frequently relies on must be able to mentally map multiple elements from the concrete conceptual respect her husband,”12 is a reiteration of the body metaphors to explain domain associated with heat (temperature idea that the wife forms a united whole with the husband. She is the body that forms the abstract theological truth. rising over time, boiling liquid, steam, cooking containers with lids) onto multiple whole unified self with the head. They are elements of the conceptual domain associated with anger (anger one. The point of correspondence between marriage and bodies intensifying over time, control of emotion, physical sensations that is explicated in the passage is that both husbands/wives and of anger, emotional outbursts). heads/bodies form a single whole. In the next section, we will One important distinction between an image metaphor (“his investigate how the existing mental connections in the minds face was an open book”) and a conceptual metaphor (anger is of the audience between unity and whole bodies would have heat) is that image metaphors describe something with language, helped them process the meaning of the metaphor. but conceptual metaphors are implicit and help us to explain or Conceptual Metaphors understand something at the conceptual level before we put it into Paul frequently relies on body metaphors to explain abstract language. Another important distinction is that image metaphors theological truth. This brings up another discourse-level can be novel comparisons that the hearer has never considered linguistic discussion, the role of conceptual metaphors in before and still be understandable. The mental mapping that explaining and understanding abstract ideas.13 I have provided a makes understanding the metaphor possible can happen as the more in-depth discussion of conceptual metaphor theory and its metaphor is processed. But understanding figurative language that usefulness in biblical exegesis elsewhere,14 but the following is a relies on implicit conceptual metaphors involves accessing prebrief introduction to the main idea. existing mappings between conceptual domains that are stored in Cognitive linguists distinguish between traditional literary long-term memory.16 In other words, figurative language based metaphors (they use the term “image metaphors”), which on implicit conceptual metaphors is comprehensible because describe one thing in terms of another thing (“his face was an the hearer has already learned to associate the two conceptual open book”), and “conceptual metaphors,” which are cognitive domains in their mind because of their prior experiences with tools foundational to human thought and reasoning. Much of discourse in a particular language and culture. the meaning we process from language depends on using these Implicit conceptual metaphors often result in metaphors and implicit conceptual metaphors to explain and understand abstract other figurative language that must be analyzed at the discourseideas. Both image metaphors and conceptual metaphors rely on level, not the sentence-level. This is because the figurative the brain making a connection between two conceptual domains. language that arises from implicit conceptual metaphors can For image metaphors we link a single concept or image from one flow across paragraphs and entire texts. Making the intended conceptual domain (book) to a single image or concept from a inferences requires tapping into a shared cognitive environment different conceptual domain (face) in order to describe a point for context (i.e., identifying the existing mappings between of similarity. This process of linking corresponding concepts is conceptual domains that are conventional in a language and called “conceptual mapping.” Conceptual metaphors, however, culture), as opposed to merely analyzing the immediate linguistic rely on mapping not merely one concept or image to another, context of the words and grammar used in a sentence. but an entire conceptual domain to another conceptual domain Unity is a whole body and Related Conceptual to explain how something works.15 Conceptual metaphors use Metaphors in the New Testament a source domain derived from everyday human experience to In the NT, the underlying conceptual metaphor unity is a explain a target domain that is more abstract. whole body results in metaphors and other figurative language A conceptual metaphor is a conventionalized mapping (a that both describe and explain how members of the church pattern of associations between the elements of two conceptual 6 • Priscilla Papers

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should relate to each other. The longest passage based on this conceptual metaphor is 1 Cor 12:12–27 where Paul explains the interdependence and mutual care that brings unity out of diversity. God “has put the body together . . . so that there should be no division in the body” (1 Cor 12:24–25 NIV).17 Each part shares in the experience of the other parts as a united whole (“one” is repeated eleven times). Interestingly, in the hypothetical dialogue between the body parts (1 Cor 12:15–21), the head does not have any special status. It is simply another one of the many parts that needs all the other parts. Historian of ancient philosophy and medicine Teun Tieleman writes that Plato viewed the other organs as subservient to the head and thought the head was the most honorable organ. So it is significant that in a cultural context informed by Platonic philosophy, The role played by the head in the fable is exquisitely suited to driving home the point about the fundamental equality and unity of the members based on their interdependence and in spite of their seeing themselves as being more or less important.18 As Paul points out, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (1 Cor 12:26 NIV). Elsewhere in the NT, being united as members of one body entails a calling to peace (Col 3:15). This peace is manifest in the “one body” of Christ who destroys barriers of hostility and unites Jews and Gentiles in himself as “one new humanity” (Eph 2:14–16, 3:6 NIV). Bodily integrity demands moral integrity, and members of one body must be truthful with each other (Eph 4:25). In addition to the many parts serving different functions, the wholeness of one body entails an equality in which “each member belongs to all the others” (Rom 12:4–5 NIV).

Jesus Christ is repeatedly designated the head of his body, the church (Eph 1:22, 5:23; Col 1:18). Connection with the head is seen as what leads to growth and nourishment for the body. Paul warns against those believers who have “lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow” (Col 2:19 NIV). He says that Christ “feeds and cares for” the church as his own body (Eph 5:29 NIV).

The more concrete source domain of bodily wholeness (various body parts, different functions, interdependent functions, parts that are uncovered, parts that are private, parts that are considered more or less important, growth, health, nourishment, injury, weakness, strength, dismemberment) is mapped onto the abstract target domain of unity (individual differences, membership, interdependence, mutual service, moral integrity, common purpose, belonging). Beyond simply describing a unified relationship, this underlying conceptual metaphor that links the two conceptual domains allows Paul to better explain abstract truth and exhort people to righteous behavior as well.

The “husband is the head of the wife” is figurative language that accesses the same implicit conceptual metaphor, unity is a whole body, as Paul’s metaphors and figurative language explaining the unified functioning of a healthy church and the

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unity of Christ with his church. Precisely how authority works in this united wholeness is not something the metaphor explains.19 Other metaphors and figurative language describing the relationship between Christ and his people rely on similar metaphors of interdependent wholeness and structural integrity.

Consider Jesus as the vine and his followers as the branches, or Jesus as the cornerstone and his people as a temple. In these metaphors, Christ has a central but interdependent role.

Authority is not a part of what these metaphors explain either.

For example, in John 15, Jesus teaches that the flourishing of the branches is dependent on “remaining” in the vine. Branches that are cut off, or dismembered, from the whole “can do nothing” (John 15:5 NIV). They are thrown away, they wither, and they are destroyed. Although it is not explicit in the passage, the vine needs the healthy branches to bear fruit. If all the branches are cut off, the vine is fruitless, a picture of interdependence and wholeness, not hierarchy. Jesus exhorts his followers to “remain in me, as I also remain in you” (John 15:4 NIV), a description of mutual commitment. Just as the head forms a single whole self with the body, the vine forms a single whole plant with the branches. Later in the passage, when the focus shifts from remaining in the vine to remaining in Jesus’s love, he rejects the hierarchical master/ servant relationship to which he is entitled, but rather focuses on the connection and sharing between himself and his followers, saying, “Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15 NIV). Then he returns to the image of fruitfulness that began the passage, fruitfulness that depends on the connected wholeness of the plant.

Another metaphor of structural integrity and wholeness in Ephesians that precedes the body metaphor in ch. 5 is the image of God’s people as a temple with Christ as the cornerstone or foundation. This metaphor of Christ as the cornerstone appears in the Synoptic Gospels and in 1 Pet 2:1–12 (all quoting Ps 118:22), and Peter pictures God’s people as living stones being built into a spiritual house. First Peter and Ephesians are typically dated by evangelical Bible scholars to about the same time period (early AD 60s), so this building metaphor was probably familiar in early Christian discourse and the teaching of the apostles. Paul says that in Christ Jesus, “the whole building is joined together and rises up to become a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph 2:21 NIV). In Eph 2:20 and 1 Pet 2:6, the word typically translated “cornerstone” is akrogōniaion. But elsewhere, when quoting Ps 118:22 (Matt 21:42, Luke 20:17, Mark 12:10, Acts 4:11, 1 Pet 2:7), the Greek phrase used to refer to the cornerstone is kephalēn gōnias (“head of a corner”). The cornerstone’s “headship” was derived from its function providing structural integrity to the whole building.

This metaphor is another one of interdependence and wholeness, not hierarchy. A cornerstone alone is not a functional building.

A building without a cornerstone falls apart. The structural integrity of the building depends on its unified wholeness, not on the authority or hierarchy imposed by the kephalēn gōnias.

Paul also uses a head and body metaphor to explain the relationship between God, Christ, men, and women in support

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of an argument for head coverings: “the head of every man is cognitive linguistics. By digging into scholarship that investigates Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ the power of metaphors and figurative language in making is God” (1 Cor 11:3 NIV). Unpacking the relationship of this body meaning, and applying more discourse-level analysis, they will find abundant support in Scripture for the idea that God calls metaphor to the teaching on head coverings requires familiarity men and women, not to hierarchy, but with the prevailing first-century beliefs about bodies, hair, sexuality, It is a significant interpretive leap to interdependent relationships and and reproductive anatomy that would wholeness in unity. have been part of the conceptual to say they would have obviously domains of the hearers when they inferred Paul was trying to teach Notes 1. For a chronological overview of the inferred the figurative meaning of that husbands have authority over debate over the available figurative senses the metaphor, and that is beyond the their wives with this metaphor. of kephalē, see Alan F. Johnson, “A Metascope of this article.20 But note that in Study of the Debate over the Meaning this passage that begins with the head of ‘Head’ (Kephalē) in Paul’s Writings,” Priscilla Papers 20/4 (Autumn and body imagery (which elsewhere in Scripture is clearly used 2006) 21–29. to teach about unity), the interdependence of men and women 2. Although scholars certainly have noted the salient presence of a is explicitly asserted in 1 Cor 11:11: “in the Lord woman is not body metaphor and have argued against translating a figurative sense independent of man, nor is man independent of woman” (NIV). of kephalē, their discussions of the metaphor have not drawn clear The constant interplay between these prevalent metaphors in distinctions between inferred metaphorical senses of words and inferred the writings of the early church implies that the speakers could meanings of metaphors. See for example, Gregory Dawes, The Body count on the hearers’ existing mappings between conceptual in Question: Metaphor and Meaning in the Interpretation of Ephesians 5:21–33, BibInt 30 (Brill, 2000) 127: “If κεφαλή is (as we will argue) a domains like unity, interdependence, bodies, and buildings. living metaphor throughout Ephesians, it does not ‘mean’ ‘over-lord’.

Christ is the head of the church (Eph 1:22, 4:15, 5:23; Col 1:18), Nor does it ‘mean’ ‘source’. It means ‘head’, and should be translated as the husband is the head of the wife (Eph 5:23). The wife is the as ‘head’, but with the understanding that ‘head’ can be used as a body of the husband, the church is the body of Christ and also metaphor.” Dawes here locates meaning at word-level. The meaning the bride/wife of Christ (2 Cor 11:2). Jesus is “a lamb without of a metaphor, however, is found in the link, not in the sense of one of blemish or defect” (1 Pet 1:19 NIV) whose literal body is offered the words. Investigations from the field of cognitive linguistics exploring to God in sacrifice so that the church, his metaphorical body how metaphors work and how figurative language is processed are and bride, can be presented “without stain or wrinkle or any useful for making these important distinctions between primary and other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph 5:27 NIV). Our metaphorical word senses, and between the meaning of a word and the individual bodies are members of Christ’s body and temples meaning of a metaphor, as this article attempts to demonstrate. of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:15, 19), but we also come together 3. Kevin Giles, “Complementarian Theology in Crisis,” in Eyes to as living stones forming the temple that has Christ as the See and Ears to Hear Women: Sexual Assault as a Crisis of Evangelical Theology, ed. Tim Krueger, Jeff Miller, Mitch Randall (CBE International, cornerstone (1 Cor 3:16, 11:16; 1 Pet 2:4–6). The body of Christ is 2018) 59–81, https://cbeinternational.org/content/ets-journals. built up (Eph 4:12, 16) like a building as it matures in unity (Eph 4. For example, see Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, Relevance: 4:13–15). These interwoven images of bodies, buildings, united Communication and Cognition (Blackwell, 1986) and Thomas Scottparts, and growing wholes, and their underlying conceptual Phillips, Speaking Our Minds: Why Human Communication is metaphors of connection, unity, and interdependence are Different, and how Language Evolved to Make It Special (Palgrave clearly an important part of the cognitive environment of the Macmillan, 2015). speakers and hearers and affect the inferences they would make 5. David A. deSilva, An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, about the relevant meaning of “the husband is the head of the Methods, & Ministry Formation (IVP Academic, 2004) 703. wife.” It is a significant interpretive leap to say they would have 6. deSilva, An Introduction to the New Testament, 704. obviously inferred Paul was trying to teach that husbands 7. For an example of a study of the household code of Eph 5–6 that have authority over their wives with this metaphor, because includes discourse analysis, see Cynthia Long Westfall, “‘This Is a Great authority is not what these body metaphors explain.21 Metaphor!’ Reciprocity in the Ephesians Household Code,” in Christian

Conclusion: Move the Debate to the Discourse Level Hopefully, this introductory overview of discourse-level analysis that pays attention to how metaphors and figurative language are processed and how the shared cognitive context of conceptual metaphors affects understanding of figurative language can help reframe debate over the meaning of “headship” passages like Eph 5:21–33. Instead of humoring the attempt to make it a debate over sentence-level syntax and semantics, egalitarian Bible scholars should take up some of the tools provided by the inference model of communication, discourse analysis, and 8 • Priscilla Papers

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Origins and Greco-Roman Culture: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts, vol. 1 of Early Christianity in Its Hellenistic Context, TENTS 9, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Wendy Porter (Brill, 2013) 561–97; for an example of a study of the headbody metaphor in Eph 5 that draws heavily on the discipline of rhetoric, akin to discourse analysis, see Michelle Lee-Barnewall, “Turning ΚΕΦΑΛΗ on its Head: The Rhetoric of Reversal in Ephesians 5:21–33,” 599–614 in the same volume.

8. As a key example, see Wayne Grudem, “The Meaning of κεφαλή (‘Head’): An Evaluation of New Evidence, Real and Alleged,” JETS 44/1 (March 2001) 25–65.

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9. Richard S. Cervin, “On the Significance of Kephalē (‘Head’): A Study of the Abuse of One Greek Word,” Priscilla Papers 30/2 (Spring 2016) 8.

10. For a metaphor to translate well, the hearers in the target language must be able to map the two images and find the intended correspondence between the two conceptual domains in order to process the figurative meaning. If conceptual domains are significantly different from one culture to another, this may not be possible, and the translated metaphor will be meaningless. Or the target language hearers may map the images differently than the original hearers, and an unintended meaning will be inferred. It can be especially difficult to translate metaphors that rely on implicit links between conceptual domains because the mapping required to process the meaning is conventional in the original language and culture, but may not be conventional in the target language and culture. If translators deem a metaphor too difficult to translate, they should do their best to process the meaning the original audience would have inferred and translate the intended meaning of the metaphor.

11. For example, at Eph 5:23, the 1971 paraphrase The Living Bible reads, “For a husband is in charge of his wife in the same way Christ is in charge of his body the Church.” Similarly, the 2017 Passion Translation reads, “the husband provides leadership for the wife, just as Christ provides leadership for his church. . . .”

12. This translation of Eph 5:33 is by Westfall, “This Is a Great Metaphor!,” 595.

13. For a comprehensive overview of how insights from cognitive linguistics (including conceptual metaphor theory) can be applied to Bible interpretation and theology, see John Sanders, Theology in the Flesh: How Embodiment and Culture Shape the Way We Think about Truth, Morality, and God (Fortress, 2016).

14. Christy Hemphill, “All in a Week’s Work: Using Conceptual Metaphor Theory to Explain Figurative Meaning in Genesis 1,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 71/4 (2019) 233–42, https:// asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2019/PSCF12–19Hemphill.pdf, and “Dressing for Spiritual Battle and Other Challenges: Translating Passages with Underlying Conceptual Metaphors,” Journal of Translation 15/1 (2019) 23–34.

15. For an overview of conceptual metaphor theory, see George Lakoff, “The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor,” in Metaphor and Thought, ed. Andrew Ortony (Cambridge University, 1993) 1–50.

16. Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green, Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006) 295.

17. Perhaps the hearers would have inferred a parallel with the way God joins a man and a woman in the one flesh union of marriage, and “what God has joined together, no one should separate” (Mark 10:9).

18. Teun Tieleman, “Head and Heart: The Pauline Corpus Considered against the Medical and Philosophical Backdrop,” R&T 21 (2014) 98.

19. Modern people know the head holds the brain and is the source of thinking and associate the head with the “command center” of the body. This view of the head as the source of decision-making and will may predispose modern hearers to infer authority or leadership from the head metaphor. But this is imposing associations that were not necessarily part of the first century conceptual domain. For a case that Paul viewed the heart, not the head, as the locus of comprehension, deliberation, and intention, see Troy W. Martin, “Performing the Head Role: Man is the Head of Woman (1 Cor 11:3 and Eph 5:23),” in Theology and Practice in Early Christianity: Essays New and Old with Updated Reception Histories, WUNT 440 (Mohr Siebeck, 2020) 383–94.

20. For an article that gives important insight into first-century Greek concepts of the physiological relationship between heads, hair,

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and sexuality, see Troy W. Martin, “Paul’s Argument from Nature for the Veil in 1 Corinthians 11:13–15: A Testicle Instead of a Head Covering,” JBL 123/1 (Spring 2004) 75–84.

21. How this body metaphor functions in the larger context of the household code in which it is found (Eph 5:21–6:9) is a separate question that I have not attempted to answer in this article. Paul presumes that husbands do have authority over their wives in this culture (5:22, 24), but he is clearly not, as some have claimed, bolstering this presupposition with an appeal to “headship” as some sort of ontological hierarchy. He is advocating for smooth functioning of the household flowing out of unity and mutual concern.

CHRISTY HEMPHILL is a linguistics and translation adviser working with a Native American minority language Scripture translation project in southern Mexico. She holds master’s degrees in applied linguistics from Old Dominion University and Dallas International University.

GIFTS THAT PAY YOU INCOME

Lifetime income gifts are wonderful solutions if you wish to give in a substantial way but are concerned about retirement income.

You can gift cash or other property and receive steady income for the rest of your life (or a designated number of years). The remainder will go to benefit CBE. Contact Julene at 612-872-6898 or email jholt@cbeinternational.org We will connect you with an expert who will give you a free, personalized, no-obligation illustration.

Priscilla Papers | 35/2 | Spring 2021 • 9

Book Review

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth

by Beth Allison Barr (Brazos Press, 2021) Reviewed by Kelly Schmidt

In The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, Beth Allison Barr shares her personal story of rejecting complementarian views on male headship and female submission. Growing up, Barr had internalized the complementarian notions of “biblical” womanhood from the teaching of evangelical influencers such as Bill Gothard, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Beverly and Tim LaHaye, and others. A variety of disturbing and hurtful interactions faced by Barr and her husband prompted a deep examination of the topic. A history professor at Baylor University, Barr weaves her personal story with church history and current events, using women’s history as the mooring for her work investigating patriarchy. Barr examines attitudes about the female gender originating in ancient cultures (Israel’s and others), Paul’s writings on the topic, and the evolution of attitudes about women within the church from medieval to modern times. Although her examination isn’t exclusively theological, the central question of her work is, “What if patriarchy isn’t divinely ordained but is a result of human sin?” (25).

Her expertise in medieval history brings insight from the likes of Margery Kempe, an apologist who challenged the English archbishop, which suggests that the historical stories told about women in the church are far from the domesticated, devoted, doting homemaker which is often upheld as ideal in current complementarian settings. “The medieval church was simply too close in time to forget the significant roles women played in establishing the Christian faith throughout the remnants of the Roman Empire,” writes Barr (88).

As she traces church history, she identifies places where power struggles, economic advantage, and gender issues intersect: the rise of the priesthood and sacramental theology in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a shift in the view of marriage during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation (which elevated being a wife and mother to the height of holiness), and the conservative religious resurgence of the 1980s and 90s against progressive secular culture. Barr argues that the current evangelical understanding of womanhood stems not from a lengthy biblical tradition modeled by Jesus or early Christians but from the last five hundred years: The emphasis on Pauline texts by early modern reformers was born into a secular world already supported by a gender hierarchy. Rather than Protestant reformers reviving a biblical model, they were simply mapping Scripture onto a preceding secular structure.

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Instead of Scripture transforming society, Paul’s writings were used to prop up the patriarchal practices already developing in the early modern world. (123) Observing that sixteenth-century ideals contribute more to the modern version of biblical womanhood than all the centuries before, Barr explores the “cult of domesticity”— ideas from middle-class European culture that “emphasized piety, domesticity, submission, and purity as characteristics of the ideal Christian woman” (155). The benefit of Barr’s writing is that she helps the reader to understand both the origin of this mindset and the implications it continues to have within contemporary evangelical thought (e.g., purity culture and sexual abuse dynamics). Finally, Barr explores how both the Industrial Revolution and the aftermath of World Wars I and II created economic reasons to reinforce the subordination of women. Post-WWII, These laws put women under the household authority of their husbands, rewarded women for getting married and having children . . . and even restricted women from working outside the home and filing for divorce. (192) For readers seeking to understand the main issues in the egalitarian/complementarian debate, Barr’s work gives a view that is more historical than theological, yet substantial in covering the main issues. The highlights of Barr’s book include a review of historical texts and stories representing women in the church and issues of gender, a discussion of gendered language in Bible translation, how the Reformation flipped the Church Fathers’ perception of the sexuality of women, and the Trinitarian heresy of eternal subordination of the Son in relationship to gender hierarchy. If a reader is new to the debate at hand, Barr’s book is very readable, yet the in-depth history lesson may feel overwhelming or the lack of intense theological dissection frustrating. However, if the reader is aware of the primary talking points of the conversation yet is unaware of the historical and social migration of gender roles within the church throughout history, Barr’s work is an excellent primer, especially concerning the influence of the Reformation.

As seems vogue of late, this book carries the perspective of a woman raised in complementarian culture who breaks with that culture after scriptural, historical, cultural, and personal reflection. Thus, for a reader who already holds an egalitarian viewpoint, it might be less helpful in introducing new perspectives on the topic. However, Barr sticks the landing on articulating the implications that flow from a strong complementarian viewpoint and why they are so troubling: female submission

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and subordination has shifted from being a minor theological difference (such as the forms of baptism or communion) to an issue that is central to the validity of Scripture and the truth of the gospel. Therefore, from the complementarian point of view, those who do not ascribe to women’s subordination to men are branded as heretical.

Barr concludes her work with this observation: Evidence shows me how Christian patriarchy was built, stone by stone, throughout the centuries. Evidence shows me how, century after century, arguments for women’s subordination reflect historical circumstances more than the face of God. Evidence shows me that just because complementarianism uses biblical texts doesn’t mean it reflects biblical truth. Evidence shows me the

trail of sin and destruction left in the wake of teachings that place women under the power of men. (205) The power of her work is that she invites the reader to consider the evidence as well.

KELLY SCHMIDT is a pastor with the Foursquare denomination and an adjunct professor at Life Pacific University. She specializes in discipleship, leadership development, and change management. Currently based in Southern California, she is a PhD candidate in organizational leadership at Eastern University.

When not working on her dissertation, she likes to throw axes, hike, and visit national parks.

Elevating women’s equality in church and Christian NGO work.

Kate Coleman Founding director of Next Leadership

Lucy Peppiatt Principal of Westminster Theological Centre

Natalie Collins Gender justice specialist. speaker, and trainer

Find more details at cbe.today/2021conf cbeinternational.org

Andrew Bartlett QC Author of Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts

Steve Holmes Principal of St. Mary’s Collage, head of University of St. Andrews School of Divinity

Elaine Storkey Philosopher, sociologist, and theologian

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Book Review

Seven Transforming Gifts of Menopause: An Unexpected Spiritual Journey

by Cheryl Bridges Johns (Brazos Press, 2020) Reviewed by Patty Craft

In Seven Transforming Gifts of Menopause: An Unexpected Spiritual Journey, Cheryl Bridges Johns shines a new light on the dramatic transformation that takes place during perimenopause and menopause. She invites us to see menopause as more than a time of biological change by examining the psychological and spiritual aspects. One of the most compelling aspects of the book is how she brings to light the way misogyny and a diminished view of women’s bodies has prevented women from embracing the normal biological experience of menopause as a holistic, transformative experience.

Johns holds an MA from Wheaton College and a PhD from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She has extensive experience in both ministry and academia and teaches spiritual renewal at Pentecostal Theological Seminary in Cleveland, Tennessee. According to her, women can experience seven opportunities, or gifts, through menopause. During menopause, a woman’s changing hormonal balance begins to reveal a new way of experiencing life. While society has ignored, misunderstood, and even vilified these experiences, Johns labels them as gifts that at times can be overwhelming and possibly unwanted. But, as Johns explains, by working through each gift, or development task, women can be transformed and ready to enthusiastically embrace the second half of life.

According to Johns, “uncovering” is the first of these gifts and functions as a gateway into the transformation of menopause. Johns says, “As a new hormonal balance emerges, women begin to take note of the disparity in power, injustice in society, betrayal in relationships, and disappointments that they once were willing to overlook. In other words, the rose-colored glasses come off” (39). Biological, menopausal changes are expressed through the intensity of emotions women sometimes feel they have no control over. For Johns, working with and through these emotions is key to confronting both personal and societal experiences of injustice, instead of ignoring them the way women are encouraged to do.

The second and third gifts, anger and the authentic self, are closely tied to uncovering. Grieving loss, forgiveness, and dealing with anger in an honest and healthy way are important tasks for women to work through. Expanded time and spiritual freedom are the freeing gifts that follow. The final gifts of vision and courage challenge women to embrace a new calling that they can pursue with their “courageous dragon self.”

Women have long been defined and victimized by negative opinions of their bodies. In this book, Johns examines how patriarchal forces, both inside and outside the church, use women’s biology to further oppress them and keep them in

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their place. It is an odd combination of revering women for motherhood, using myths about menstruation to ostracize them, and then discarding women when menopause eliminates their childbearing abilities. Superstition combined with a woman’s supposed God-prescribed destiny of motherhood is a prescription for oppression based on anatomy.

But Johns announces there is hope in modern changes within medicine and culture. She examines both medical advancements and the increased accessibility of information about menopause, specifically the development of hormone replacement therapy and a more holistic view of menopause as a time of transformation. These two factors give us a menopausal journey far different from our foremothers.

The author cautions that there is no expectation that all women will experience every single gift. Johns specifically explores the similarities and differences between white and black women’s menopausal experiences. The way Johns includes the perspectives of women of color brings further strength and insight to this book. Women of color not only have their personal injustices to work through but also corporate and societal injustices. In addition to this, black women have a longer menopausal journey than white women. The median length for black women is ten years in comparison to seven and a half for white women. This enlightening information is not widely discussed, which makes this book an important resource for women with diverse life experiences.

Women armed with information can take control of their menopausal experience, seeing it as a time of transformation instead of the death sentence it used to be. Johns reframes the biological dynamics of menopause and weaves a more holistic vision of women’s identity and experiences. Everyone’s journey will be different because we each approach menopause from our unique perspectives and experiences. Your feelings may be dismissed, ignored, and possibly ridiculed, but this resource can give you the guidance and encouragement you need to experience menopause as a time of remarkable transformation.

PATTY CRAFT is a minister with experience as an associate pastor and grant writer and has worked in nonprofit leadership and curriculum development.

She is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene with an undergraduate degree in Christian Education and a masters in Curriculum and Instruction. Patty has been married for thirty-plus years to an amazing guy.

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Book Review

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

by Kevin Giles (Cascade Books, 2020) Reviewed by Jonathan Tysick

The saying goes that ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. Kevin Giles, a retired Australian Anglican minister of over forty years and long-time champion of the egalitarian movement, believes this is certainly true of male-headship teachings. Answering his title question in the affirmative, Giles forcefully argues that “headship teaching can encourage and legitimate domestic abuse and it must be abandoned if domestic abuse is to be effectively countered in our churches” (2).

Summary This short book (just 116 pages) is divided into four main chapters, with three accompanying addendums. The first chapter shares the disturbing realities of domestic abuse. Citing recent academic studies and reports, Giles details how at least thirty-five percent of women around the world experience violence from intimate partners (5). He goes on to expose the tragic reality that domestic abuse is also rampant in the church, pinpointing the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States and the Anglican Diocese of Sydney in Australia as examples of evangelical, complementarian churches where an “endemic” of women’s abuse has been exposed by the light of the #metoo and #churchtoo movements (11).

In chapter two Giles synthesises contemporary data to define domestic abuse as “the ongoing assertion of power, almost always by the man over his wife or intimate partner, that has as its intent the complete control of the woman” (20, italics original).

This manifests itself in verbal, psychological, social, financial, spiritual, sexual, and physical abuse (23).

Giles cites numerous studies to show the scholarly consensus that “behind all domestic abuse and violence lies the belief that men should be in charge and make all the important decisions and women should be submissive” (26). He goes on to argue that headship teaching (“God set the man over the woman and thus the hierarchical ordering of the sexes is God-given, good, and can never change” [32]) provides a divinely legitimized, biblical entitlement for patriarchy leading some men to abuse their wives (37).

While Giles concedes that complementarian theology “properly explained” might not directly lead husbands to abuse their wives, he argues that hearing this theology taught from pulpits “can encourage and legitimate abuse in needy and controlling men found in every church and among the clergy” (40). Thus, it is not enough for complementarians to condemn domestic abuse; rather, Giles argues that what is needed is a full-scale re-evaluation of complementarian teaching (40– 41). Giles further cites leading complementarians who have 14 • Priscilla Papers

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said that happy complementarian marriages are “in practice egalitarian” (38).

In the third chapter Giles evaluates data and tells stories of his experience regarding the abuse of women in the developing world, once more concluding that the root of domestic abuse is patriarchy, usually legitimized by religious traditions (45).

Again, he believes that Christians need to re-evaluate their interpretations of Scripture if they are to be part of the solution to domestic abuse and not its propagation (55).

In the final main chapter, Giles interprets key biblical passages that address marriage (especially 1 Pet 3:1–6 and Eph 5:22–24), challenging the exegetical and hermeneutical grounds of headship teaching. While I found certain aspects of his exegesis of Eph 5:21–33 unconvincing,1 Giles is strong in challenging the hermeneutical jumps undertaken by proponents of headship teaching to defend their interpretations. Throughout the book and especially in this chapter (see his handling of Mal 2:16) Giles also defends the view that abuse is among the biblical grounds for divorce (78–79).

Giles closes his book with three helpful addendums. The first details the historic dimension of the abuse of women, tracing how laws and attitudes (inside and outside of the church) have changed, especially since the 1970s. The second addendum summarises and critiques a document regarding domestic abuse created and endorsed by the Anglican Diocese of Sydney in 2018.

Giles finds the document fatally flawed in that, while decrying domestic abuse, it endorses “the one thing that almost all the experts agree is the primary cause,” male headship and female submission (111). The third addendum is especially helpful; Giles here evaluates five common complementarian claims regarding the relationship between headship teaching and domestic abuse.

Critical Analysis The Headship of Men and the Abuse of Women is a short, lively book that effectively forges a connection between maleheadship teachings and domestic abuse. Giles brings his pastoral experience and academic skill together to challenge the foundations and harmful effects of complementarian theology.

His chapter on “understanding domestic abuse and violence” is particularly strong at making accessible the academic research on domestic abuse and showing how headship teaching plays directly into shaping “rigid gender roles,” the main driver of such abuse (81). While not all will be convinced by his argument, this strong connection will hopefully lead readers to at least consider his titular question and subsequently wonder whether headship teaching is really what God wills and Scripture teaches.

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Without addendums this book is only eighty-eight pages long, making it an accessible work that at times reads like a series of blog posts or articles. Despite this brevity, the book can come off as repetitive, as Giles repeats his thesis numerous times, even using the same quotations on occasion. On this note I wonder if his important thesis would have had a broader hearing if the eighty-eight pages were trimmed into an extended article.

Likely being his last book and having advocated for a nonpatriarchal, egalitarian vision of Christian ministry and marriage since the 1970s, one gets the sense that the author’s patience with the complementarian arguments has run thin, resulting in a blunt book full of fiery prose. For instance, he says that “the Sydney [Anglican] Diocese has a low view of women” (108); the complementarian claim of upholding women as equal to men is “disingenuous” (103); he describes complementarian pastors as being “spiritually abusive” (42); and he defines complementarian theology as being “euphemistic and obfuscating . . . to sound acceptable to the modern ear” (32). Although I am sympathetic to many of his opinions and grateful for his life’s work, I fear this strong language will hinder rather than help his complementarian readers consider his claims.

It is said that there are timely books and timeless books, and this work is definitely of the former category. Citing contemporary studies and detailing current events in denominations that are at a crossroads in their response to domestic abuse, the book reads as a pertinent pamphlet of passion, calling his complementarian brothers and sisters to abandon their harmful teaching. As the isolating health restrictions of COVID-19 have caused dramatic rises in cases of domestic abuse,2 this book is potentially even

more needed now than when first published in June of 2020. If readers are left unconvinced by the book’s thesis, at the very least it serves as a valuable introduction to the issues surrounding domestic abuse, which in and of itself will be a great service to every reader.

Notes 1. Giles argues that “in Eph 5:21–33 we have two contrasting and irreconcilable understandings of marriage standing side by side, a radically new and distinctively Christian one, and one that is as old as the fall and which prevails in this world” (67). I find I. Howard Marshall’s exegesis more convincing in his chapter, “Mutual Love and Submission in Marriage: Colossians 3:18–19 and Ephesians 5:21–33,” in Discovering Biblical Equality, 2nd ed., ed. Ronald W. Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, and Gordon D. Fee (InterVarsity, 2005).

2. According to the Huffington Post, domestic abuse hotline calls have nearly doubled in Canada during the pandemic. See https:// huffingtonpost.ca/entry/canada-domestic-violence-double-covidpandemic_ca_6033dadac5b67c32961f779f.

JONATHAN TYSICK is pursuing a Master of Theological Studies at Wycliffe College (University of Toronto). He graduated with distinction from the South African Theological Seminary with a BTh. He formerly worked with the School of Biblical Studies (University of the Nations) in Cape Town, South Africa. Jonathan is especially interested in how theological and NT studies impact contemporary issues in the church and society and how these fields can equip Christians to live out their faith in a pluralistic world.

Join the Movement Make a statement about your commitment to women when your church or school joins CBE as a member. Visit cbe.today/orgmembers.

The fact that [our] seminary is an institutional member of CBE sends a signal to the larger community about how we view women, in particular, in the life of our family.

—Paul Chilcote, Ashland Seminary

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Book Review

Christian Egalitarian Leadership: Empowering the Whole Church according to the Scriptures

edited by Aída Besançon Spencer and William David Spencer (House of Prisca and Aquila Series, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020) Reviewed by Jeff Miller

Essay collections have been important to the thriving of evangelical egalitarianism over the last few decades. A key example is Women, Authority, and the Bible (IVP, 1986), edited by Alvera Mickelsen, the first board chair of CBE International. This volume assembled the voices of more than twenty evangelical scholars and was instrumental in articulating the theological and biblical case for egalitarianism. Two decades later, editors Ronald Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, and Gordon Fee crafted Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy (IVP, 2005) to include not only biblical and theological essays, but also chapters on church history and pressing issues such as abortion, self-esteem, marriage, and unity. The volume under review here, Christian Egalitarian Leadership, takes further steps toward broadening the issues (e.g., it is about more than gender) but also focuses on one essential aspect of the thriving of egalitarianism—leadership.

Before addressing the several essays that comprise this unique book, a word about the series of which it is a part will help. The series title, House of Prisca and Aquila, refers both to a publishing “house” and to Acts 18:26, where Prisca and Aquila famously invited Apollos into their “home” (NIV, CEV, etc.) and “more accurately expounded to him the Way of God.” The House’s mission is “to produce quality books that expound accurately the word of God to empower women and men to minister together in a multicultural church.” More than twenty volumes, on a wide variety of topics, have been published (see http://HouseOfPriscaAndAquila.com).

The book has two sections, “Theory” and “Practice.” The first, and shorter, section consists of five chapters; chs. 1 and 2 lay the foundation. First, coeditors Aída and William Spencer overview NT teaching on egalitarian leadership. They describe their understanding of leadership: “We propose that leadership, especially in the church, should be Christian egalitarian servant leadership” (3). They also make clear that the book is about more than gender equality: “Egalitarian leadership includes the equal leadership of men and women, Gentiles and Jews, rich and poor, slave and free, and the lack of permanent or/and innate human hierarchy except between God and humans” (4).1 One refreshing aspect of this chapter is that it establishes an egalitarian foundation, not with difficult and controversial passages such as 1 Cor 11 or 1 Tim 2, but with truth from Jesus on the danger of hierarchy (e.g., Mark 10:35–45) and from core values of the earliest churches such as unity, impartiality, the priesthood of all believers, and the Spirit’s gifting. Chapter 2, “Egalitarianism and Biblical Authority,” is by John Lathrop, who—like many of the book’s contributors—is a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. This essay positions biblical inerrancy as vital to biblical interpretation and integral to the publishing ministry of The House of Prisca and 16 • Priscilla Papers

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Aquila. Lathrop then builds on this foundation to present a case for women’s involvement in Christian leadership, briefly touching on examples of NT women and then tending to the broader themes of creation and redemption.

Grace Ying May follows with a unique essay, “Women Discipling Men,” that weaves together the stories of four women who discipled men. Two are from the Bible: Phoebe, who was a leader (prostatis, Rom 16:2) to Paul, and Deborah, who mentored Barak. The first modern example is Nancy Hudson who, like Phoebe, has instructed men in Christian leadership. Today, certain key leaders of the Christian Assemblies of South Africa are men whom Hudson discipled. The final example is Naomi Dowdy, a Christian leader in Singapore who, among many ministry endeavors, also has discipled men.2 Chapter 4, “Equal Leadership: God’s Intention at Creation”

by William Spencer, tackles a doctrine somewhat popular among complementarians, asking, “Has a hierarchy within the Godhead been built into the whole intertexture of the universe that would determine that the refusal to let women lead equally is God’s intention, reflected from God’s nature” (61)? His approach is unique.3 Spencer asks, “does such thinking originate elsewhere?”

(61) and answers that hierarchy, rather than arising from Genesis, has a “pagan genesis” (61). The chapter then locates that pagan genesis initially in the writings of Plato and then in Plato’s influence on major voices such as Philo (a Jewish philosopher in the first centuries BC and AD), Justin Martyr (a second-century Christian theologian), and perhaps as recently as the atypical translations of Gen 3:16b in the NLT and the 2016 revision of the ESV: “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband . . .” (ESV, italics added). Spencer does not stop at identifying certain effects of Platonic thought, but also offers an insightful interpretation of “God’s Intention at Creation” (the chapter’s subtitle).

Chapter 5, “Influence of Plato and Aristotle’s Patriarchy on Christian Hierarchy Today,” appropriately follows the essay that emphasized Plato. Author Jean Dimock has more to say than ch.

4 about Socrates and, especially, Aristotle and also traces their influence forward to Augustine, Aquinas, and today. She spends considerable time defending her claim that the Danvers Statement4 “encapsulates the overarching beliefs of those who follow Plato’s and Aristotle’s patriarchal views as they have influenced the interpretation of Scripture and remain in the church today” (107).

Chapters 6–15 comprise the book’s second section, “Practice.”

In the opening essay, “The Multicultural Aspect of Egalitarian Leadership,” Jeanne DeFazio recaps four House of Prisca and Aquila books in which she played a major role. These books’ commonality is that they unveil segments of society where

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the need for multicultural egalitarian leadership was seen and addressed: community and relationships (Creative Ways to Build Community, 2013), media entertainment (Redeeming the Screens, 2016), performing arts (Berkeley Street Theatre, 2017), and education (Empowering English Language Learners, 2018).

Chapter 7, by church planter Francois Augustin, proposes a response to a great opportunity. The opportunity is that the United States is both a multicultural mission field and home to innumerable Christian immigrants. Augustin’s aim is to normalize multiethnic Christian leadership in the American church. His three strategies are: 1) To move beyond awareness of multicultural leadership, the current plateau for many white American evangelicals, to its full embrace. 2) To practice proximity and deliberate integration. “With proximity and deliberate integration, multicultural exchanges take place and cross-pollination of service and leadership among all ethnic groups can become a recipe for revival” (144). 3) To rethink American culture’s highest ideal, the pursuit of happiness. In many cases, this ideal has taken the form of an addictive pursuit of comfort, fostering segregation and hindering gospel expansion. We should instead pursue God by pursuing God’s will.

Chapter 8, by Julius Kithinji of St Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya, starts with what we know about Timothy’s family and upbringing—especially the reference to his grandmother and mother (2 Tim 1:5), together with Paul calling Timothy his “beloved child” (2 Tim 1:2). This foundation then leads to the observation that egalitarian servant leadership is “a product of upbringing” (153). Indeed, upbringing “determines if we shall have an egalitarian society” (153). Communal life, still the norm in much of Africa, is a promising environment for the thriving of generational faith and generational egalitarian leadership.

Chapters 9–12 form a natural grouping. In ch. 9, Benjamin Fung and Scarlet Tsao Fung show that “a happy, fulfilling, and egalitarian marriage is absolutely possible even in this broken and postmodern world” (166). They begin with Gen 2 and “God’s original intention . . . for a man and a woman in marriage to complete each other” (168). They provide a testimony based in God’s providence and the unconditional love that brought unity and purpose from the diversity and challenges in their family.

Chapter 10, by Karen Sue Smith, tackles the topic of raising egalitarian children, noting that parents cannot pass on to their children what they themselves do not already have (181). Smith expresses a theology of children as beloved by God and having kingdom roles, and then moves to practical advice. Parents must joyfully accept their parenting role, teaching children to treasure God’s word and trust God. Chief among the several tools described is modeling a life of service. Chapter 11, “Equipping Young People to Build Healthy Relationships” by Sandra Gatlin Whitley, “highlights why adolescent girls and boys should . . . grow up knowing and living out their identity in Christ Jesus based on Ephesians 5:21: ‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ’” (195). Much of the chapter borrows its outline from the directive of Judg 19:30: Consider It, Take Counsel, Speak Up. Chapter 12, “God’s People for All Seasons: Sharing Ministry with Laypeople”

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by Lydia Sarandan, collects “stories of ordinary men and women whose hearts, minds, and abilities were offered up to God . . .”

(219–20). It stresses the importance of laying a foundation during youth for a life of service.

Chapter 13, by Ralph Kee, is a sermonic essay encouraging churches to model gender equality in their neighborhoods.

Chapter 14, by Lorraine Cleaves Anderson, presents a convincing argument that denominations should not forbid retired pastors from worshipping and fellowshipping in congregations where they served. Such decisions should instead be communal, informed by experiential wisdom, and aimed at the best interests of all involved.

Interviews contributing to this chapter come from around the globe, including Costa Rica, Korea, Brazil, Haiti, and elsewhere.

The closing chapter, “Egalitarian Leadership in Global Mission” by J. Creamer, “surveys the legacy of women’s leadership in global mission from the mid-1800s to the present” (260).

Interweaving numerous stories, she surveys the ebb and flow of women’s involvement in missions from the Women’s Missionary Movement of the 1860s – 1920s through the shift of Christianity to the Global South and to Asia.

These several essays are important, broadening contributions to the quest for Christian egalitarian leadership. Readers will, of course, come to the collection with their own backgrounds, expectations, and questions. For my part, I most valued chapters 1 (“Overview of New Testament Teachings . . .”), 7 (“Egalitarian Multiethnic Leadership in the United States”), 8 (“Egalitarian Faith Nurturing in the African Context”), 11 (“Equipping Young People to Build Healthy Relationships”), and the conclusion by coeditor Aída Besançon Spencer. I trust that other readers will also identify with certain parts of the book, for it breaks new ground in the breadth of its application of Christian egalitarianism.

Notes 1. Those who know the Spencers from their teaching at GordonConwell Theological Seminary, from their ministries in Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, from their blog (https:// AandWSpencer.blogspot.com), from their books, or from their leadership at the House of Prisca and Aquila would not need to be told that this book is not limited to gender egalitarianism. But many of our readers will know of them only from their long partnership with CBE International (their publications in Priscilla Papers, for example, are prolific).

2. See further https://IFCAWorldImpact.com/Nancy-Hudson and https://NaomiDowdy.com.

3. Kevin Giles, for example, has emphatically combatted the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son and its supposed application to hierarchy in marriage, in large part with appeal to the historic creeds, confessions, and major theologians of the church. See, for example, his The Rise and Fall of the Complementarian Doctrine of the Trinity (Cascade, 2017), and his published lecture (which gives a fuller list of his publications on the topic), “The Nicene and Reformed Doctrine of the Trinity,” Priscilla Papers 31/3 (Summer 2017) 3–8, https://cbeinternational. org/resource/article/priscilla-papers-academic-journal/nicene-andreformed-doctrine-trinity.

4. See https://cbmw.org/about/danvers-statement.

JEFF MILLER is editor of Priscilla Papers.

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Book Review

Marriage in the Middle: Embracing Midlife Surprises, Challenges, and Joys

by Dorothy Littell Greco (InterVarsity Press, 2020) Reviewed by Margaret English de Alminana

Marriage in the Middle: Embracing Midlife Surprises, Challenges, and Joys, by Dorothy Littell Greco, offers couples personal wisdom and perspective on marriage in middle age. Greco weaves together compelling first-person narratives with the stories of many aging couples from diverse ethnic backgrounds to provide insight, vulnerability, and hope. Although not explicitly focused on egalitarians, this book addresses role expectations and fairness issues that can sabotage equal unions and hinder them from flourishing.

Books preparing couples for success in marriage in general are plentiful, but far fewer help couples face the uncertainties of midlife. While other books on marriage at midlife take a more clinical approach or, conversely, are completely subjective, this book blends the two approaches. Greco examines marriage at middle age from a counselor’s perspective with personal and intimate relational narratives. This interesting blend of approaches makes the book personal, readable, and genuinely helpful.

Based upon years of coaching married couples, as well as her personal struggles, Greco believes that navigating the many challenges at midlife (from ages forty to sixty-five) can be daunting but rewarding. She writes, “Midlife can often leave us feeling like we’re out in the middle of the sea in a tiny boat with a single sail. Though we have little power over the frequency or intensity of the storms that rage around us, we do have tremendous agency in how we respond” (3). Greco’s wisdom and advice shows the reader how to restore that sense of agency that could help marriages flourish through these turbulent waters.

From bedbugs to infidelity, Marriage in the Middle offers balance to women who are feeling a bit lost and alone as their bodies change and as regrets and missed opportunities surface. Midlife can be a time when unmet expectations loom large, and strength and patience seem reduced. Greco encourages women to focus on the following traits: malleability, resilience, and engagement.

The focuses of several chapters are of special note. In chapter 3, “Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes,” the author takes an honest look at the changes taking place in the aging bodies of both women and men. She talks intimately about sex, erectile dysfunction, sleep deprivation, chronic pain, and the hormonal changes that manifest surprising emotions, such as anger. The remaining chapters deal with issues of caregiving, often culturally expected of women, and the difficulties of juggling work, leaving jobs, aging parents, and a host of other issues that can rob a midlife couple of the autumn joys of life together.

Chapter 5, “Deciphering Disappointment,” is one of the most compelling in the book. It gently walks readers through the many mazes of missed opportunities and unrealized expectations at 18 • Priscilla Papers

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the root of midlife’s resentments, anger, and sadness. Expected changes never realized—over even very small matters—can loom larger in this transitional season. One wife, Isabella, shares, “I know the division of labor is a common area of conflict for many couples, and we’re no different” (65).

Chapters on sexuality and community round out the global look at midlife. Although chapters 8 and 9, “Sex, Part 1” and “Sex, Part 2,” are offered clearly as an important aspect of an aging couples’ life together, the section did not seem well-integrated into the overall message and might have been better placed as an appendix or a book sequel. Although it was written in the same style as the previous chapters, this reader considered the topic so complex that it deserved its own treatment. Adding it in two parts made the book seem that it was attempting to survey too wide a range of topics.

The book concludes with a chapter, “Telos Revised,” challenging couples to write their own script and take control of their story.

In attempting to discern their own telos, couples should ask themselves: What are you aiming for, and how does each part of life together contribute to the goal? These questions are meaningful ones for those pioneering egalitarian models of marriage. The sense that we can and do cowrite our destinies together with God is an important reminder to us all that egalitarianism in marriage must be pursued mutually and with intention.

Marriage in the Middle is a collection of life vignettes and personal experiences that will resonate with every married couple.

Greco encourages couples to face midlife with imagination and hope and offers transparency, intimacy, and insight for the journey.

MARGARET ENGLISH de ALMINANA holds a PhD from the University of Wales. She teaches theology at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, and serves as co-pastor at Central Assembly of God in Auburndale, Florida. She has contributed to several books and journals, including authoring Kathryn Kuhlman, a Theology of Miracles (Bridge-Logos, 2021) and the article, “Incarcerated Women, Reflections on Their Stories,” in the spring 2010 issue of Priscilla Papers. She and her husband, Marty, have three children and four grandchildren. She is passionate about prayer and seeing women rise to their full measure of calling.

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Book Review

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine

by Wayne Grudem (2nd ed., Zondervan Academic, 2020) Reviewed by Allison Quient and Nicholas Quient

One cannot ignore the impact of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology upon conservative evangelicalism, especially as it relates to the evangelical gender debate. As co-founder of The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood1 and a significant face behind the complementarian-leaning English Standard Version, Grudem’s second edition (ST2 hereafter) merits a review in Priscilla Papers.

Although much remains unchanged in ST2 regarding critical issues within the gender debate, there are some differences.

Of note, Grudem (and Bruce Ware2) have adjusted their understanding of the Trinity to include Eternal Generation,3 also known as Eternal Procession. Eternal Generation holds that the Son is eternally begotten by the Father. To use creedal language, the Son is Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made. Not surprisingly, Grudem attempts to link this ancient doctrine with his views on gender hierarchy.

Although Grudem demonstrates awareness of some recent egalitarian scholarship from Philip Payne and Cynthia Westfall, he lacks the substantive engagement one might expect when updating such a massive and influential work. Aside from some minor corrections and updated bibliography at the end of each section, there is little else new in ST2 concerning the evangelical gender debate. This is unfortunate because there have been numerous exegetical, textual, and theological advances within the broader egalitarian conversation.

In this review article, two areas will be critiqued: 1) Grudem’s use of Eternal Generation to support eternal functional hierarchy within the Trinity and between man and woman. 2) Elements of Grudem’s perspective on 1 Tim 2:12 and Rom 16:7 concerning recent linguistic studies.

Eternal Hierarchy of the Son? Eternal Generation is an ancient doctrine that helps one understand how, in the context of monotheism, one member of the Trinity can be completely and fully God, equal in essence or nature and yet distinct from another member of the Trinity. Grudem adds Eternal Generation to his prior way of distinguishing the members of the Trinity based on authority and submission, which he uses as a basis for gender-based hierarchy.

What does the eternal generation of the Son represent for Grudem? It signifies that in some sense the Son is “from” the Father (297) whether, preferably for Grudem, this means “the Father eternally communicates to the Son the divine essence,” or also legitimately, “the Father is the source of the personal distinctions between Father and Son” (298). The Son being from the Father implies that:

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1.

the Son is of the same nature as the Father (for a father begets a son like himself),

2. the Son is a distinct person from the Father (for the Son is begotten and the Father is unbegotten), and 3. there is a specific order in the relationship between Father and Son (the biblical pattern is always from the Father through the Son, as in 1 Cor. 8:6. (297) How exactly Eternal Generation supports eternal functional hierarchy is disjointed in ST2. It appears Grudem uses the former doctrine as a sort of connection between the work of the Trinity in creation and the eternal existence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet, it is unclear how exactly Grudem moves from one to the other or can legitimize using one to help interpret the other.

There appears to be a reliance on the term order to describe Eternal Generation, which typically connotes pattern as he includes above, yet order may on its own have the additional sense of directing, authority, and obedience when it comes to Trinitarian “roles” (299).4 In other words, order means something slightly different in the discussion of Eternal Generation than how complementarians typically describe fundamental hierarchal relationships. Yet, somehow, “the role of initiating, directing, and sending is appropriate to the position of the Father, who is first in the regular ordering of persons in the Trinity (from the Father, through the Son in the Spirit) and the one after whom all human fatherhood is patterned (Eph. 3:14–15)” (299). Further, the particular analogical relationship between the Father and human fathers is not exact. Yet, the divine names (“Father” and “Son”) are taken to support an eternal functional hierarchy in the Trinity and in gender relationships (302–3).

Other issues with Grudem’s problematic position do not appear to have been worked out or incorporated adequately. The crucial difficulty is a pattern where Grudem does not distinguish well between a critique of where his reasoning leads and the passages he interprets myopically. A critique of his argument or categorization is considered “false” for one (or more) of three reasons: 1) Because he claims something other than what is leveled as the logical conclusion to his view (306). 2) Because the critiques are “not based on Scripture.” 3) Or, since his opponent is not seeking to prove a negative, his critic does not show how Scripture explicitly denies the eternal subjugation of the Son to the Father (310) in the passages Grudem appeals to individually. These tendencies are apparent in how he interacts with critiques from Aimee Byrd, Matthew Emerson, and Luke Stamps. These critiques will also provide an occasion to rehash some of the critical overall problems for Grudem’s understanding of the Trinity.

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Aimee Byrd, in Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, claims the doctrine Grudem espouses is “troubling” and “disconcerting” because it “teaches that the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is subordinate to the Father, not only in the economy of salvation but in his essence. The eternal relationship between the Father and the Son is then described as one of authority and submission.”5 To support this claim she notes that Grudem makes “authority and submission” a “matter of eternal nature.”6 Grudem states, “Authority and submission to authority . . . are truly divine concepts, rooted in the eternal nature of the Trinity for all eternity. . . .”7 If authority and submission are rooted in the eternal nature (an ontological category) of the Trinity then 1) individual members of the Trinity contain a part of what belongs to God’s nature that other members do not, and 2) these parts of God’s nature are hierarchically construed, therefore the Son in his nature or essence is not of equal authority to the Father. However, Grudem says he believes in “ontological equality but relational differences” (300). Unfortunately, this does not resolve the heretical logical result of his view. To further add to this point, his use of “role” has been expanded beyond mere functional limits to include what is unchanging, eternal, and essential. “The Father by virtue of being the Father, eternally has authority to plan, initiate, lead, direct, command and send . . .” (304). At issue is not the mere presence of functional authority, but authority based in one’s nature. Byrd is not bearing “false witness against” her neighbor (a claim Grudem makes, 307) by pointing out an obvious difficulty Grudem needs to resolve.

Finally, Grudem cites the critique by Matthew Emerson and Luke Stamps in the book, Trinitarian Theology.8 Emerson and Stamps offer a number of critiques, including the use of Scripture to support Eternal Subordination. They raise caution concerning the “exegesis of discrete texts,” which in systematic theology runs the risk of settling for proof-texting at the expense of considering wider contexts.9 An Eternal Subordination conclusion is also drawn from a variety of texts that could easily be read as the mediatorial role of the Messiah and hence do not constitute straightforward evidence for Grudem’s position.10 Not only is it inappropriate to claim this is straightforward evidence, but it also does not attend to the careful patristic distinction between the Son’s divine person and incarnation.

Rather than becoming obedient, the Son is by nature obedient to the Father.11 Further, there is an inability to show how “order” demands a “suborder” or “subordination” within the Trinity.

Too much is made of biblical prepositions used to describe the work of the Trinity. This is similar to Eunomius and others who denied the full deity of the Holy Spirit. At the end of the day, one might not want to follow through to the conclusion of where the argumentation leads, but the argumentation is “sharply criticized by the pro-Nicene party.”12 Grudem gravitates toward the objection of Emerson and Stamps that, if there is a distinction between authority and submission among the members of the Trinity, then there are distinct wills in the Godhead (309). Ultimately at issue is that 20 • Priscilla Papers

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one is unable to adequately separate function from ontology since authority is not merely a “relational term” but descriptive of who God is in his essence.13 If there is a difference in agency within God, then instead of orthodoxy one arrives at tritheism or subordinationism since one cannot claim the Son’s essence includes submission within the Trinity without implying there are distinctions in the divine will.14 In response, Grudem claims “their objections are based not directly on Scripture or even on major creeds but on several writers” (310). Yet he misses the pertinent point that Emerson and Stamps offered a critique of his inadequate use of Scripture.15 Next, he claims that at “the heart of their objection” “is not that Scripture denies that the Son is eternally subject to the Father,” but that Pro-Nicene supporters do (310). Here he oddly seems to assume Emerson and Stamps need to demonstrate that Eternal Generation is explicitly denied in certain passages when the issue is that Eternal Subordination 1) is not taught in Scripture, 2) counter interpretations are more plausible, and 3) Eternal Subordination is antithetical to Nicene Orthodoxy. Further, Grudem contends that the existence of a single will does not rule out “different actualizations or different expressions of that will” (310). He appears unaware or unwilling to engage with their response to this line of reasoning on pp. 128– 29 of Trinitarian Theology. In the end, he insinuates the two are overconfident. He believes his own conclusion to be “consistent with the overwhelming testimony of Scripture that the Son obeys the Father in every respect of his relationship to the world” (312).

Word Studies and Linguistics In the realm of word studies, Grudem lacks substantial engagement with key egalitarian scholars and research. For example, he argues for largely the same positions as in his first edition without interacting with those who have advanced the discussion in academic literature, such as Payne, Westfall, and Jamin Hübner, concerning the verb authenteō in 1 Tim 2:12.16 Linguistic advancements are ignored in favor of simple restatements of previous ideas. Grudem appeals to Al Wolter’s essay on authenteō in a footnote (1159 n.69) in support of the complementarian understanding of the verb, even though Wolters in a postscript in the same essay admits that he has insufficient training to deal with modern advances in linguistics as put forth by Westfall.17 Similarly, as it relates to 1 Tim 2:12 and authenteō, Grudem cites his own work, which was published in 2004, putting it out of date concerning the work of Westfall (2014, 2016), Payne (2009), and Hübner (2015)—all three are informed in linguistic theory and all three have substantially disputed Grudem’s analysis.18 For instance, Westfall in particular has demonstrated that the few occurrences of authenteō cannot fit into the model offered

by Grudem (that authenteō in 1 Tim 2:12 refers to a positive exercise of authority in an ecclesiastical setting), especially since the noun can refer to a person who commits murder (Philo, Det. 1:78). Instead of engaging with Westfall’s linguistic work, Payne’s word study, and Hübner’s methodological overview, Grudem concludes—without any explicit rationale—that Wolter’s study

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is sufficient to end the debate. This demonstrates an exegetical triumphalism on Grudem’s part that is unwarranted by the actual evidence and complexity involved in the evangelical gender debate concerning authenteō.19 We see a similar avoidance of counter-arguments as Grudem ignores the work done by Payne (Man and Woman, 319–36) on the present-tense verb “I am not permitting” (1 Tim 2:12, epitrepō). As Grudem responds to Payne’s argument (that Paul used a presenttense verb to denote a temporary injunction, not an eternal prohibition), he does not even cite Payne’s work in his response (1161).20 Given that Payne has argued rather forcefully for this point since 1986, it is incongruous that Grudem did not see fit to cite and engage Payne’s specific arguments. Grudem further asserts that if one were to accept the logic of his (unnamed and uncited) interlocutor, one would witness “the nullification of many New Testament instructions for Christians” (1161). This conclusion is both uncharitable and incorrect, as Payne correctly points out that Jesus himself negates specific commands from Moses (Matt 19:8, Mark 10:4), illustrating Payne’s point that “epitrepō does not refer to a universal or permanent permission”—there is a contextual reality of language, yet Grudem does not seem to grasp the significance of this exegetical point.

Concerning the treatment of Junia in Rom 16:7, Grudem simply asserts that the ESV (an explicitly complementarian translation he spearheaded) is correct to limit the role of Junia (and Andronicus) by adopting the reading offered by Daniel Wallace and Michael Burer.21 Although Grudem notes that this debate is “complex” (1121), he nevertheless feels that the weight of the complementarian understanding of Junia “strongly favors the ESV translation” (1121). Given that this quite recent reading has been criticized since the publication of Grudem’s first ST (1994),22 one must note that Grudem’s conclusion is a noteworthy failure to engage with new and challenging evidence—at least, one is left in the dark as to why Grudem prefers his own reading as compared to the wealth of data and arguments that might challenge his perspective.23

Conclusion We must note that one is free to disagree with competing ideas and opposing views; this is common and necessary in the search for truth. Grudem is not obligated to change his mind on any given egalitarian argument if he does not believe that the argument carries sufficient weight. However, despite sometimes offering multiple points of critique, one is still hard pressed to discover adequate engagement with key criticisms or corrections from his opponents. What we have in ST2 is a surface-level treatment that lacks nuance and exegetical precision on the question of gender equality that deserves far more.

Grudem’s commitment to the authority and applicability of Scripture is to be commended, but his lack of serious engagement with key challenges and recent advances in the study of God’s word undermines a work that has been over twenty years in the re-making. Those looking for an evangelical systematic theology that is up-to-date on recent theological and exegetical advances, let alone egalitarian, should look elsewhere.

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Notes 1. The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood began as a response to the assemblance of Christians for Biblical Equality and has been in operation since 1987.

2. See Ware’s contributions to Keith Whitfield, ed., Trinitarian Theology: Theological Models and Doctrinal Application (B&H Academic, 2019).

3. For a full discussion of Eternal Generation by someone well-versed in the gender debate, see Kevin Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (IVP Academic, 2012).

For the relevance of Eternal Generation to theology, see Fred Sanders and Scott R. Swain, eds., Retrieving Eternal Generation (Zondervan, 2017).

4. Roles are eternally and hierarchically conceived for Grudem rather than their usual transient nature in everyday speech (one can take on the role of an administrator, President, or mother at various moments without them being eternal qualities).

5. Aimee Byrd, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose (Zondervan, 2020), 100–101.

6. Byrd, Recovering, 103.

7. Byrd, Recovering, 103, citing Wayne Grudem in app. 1: “The Meaning of Kephalē (‘Head’): A Response to Recent Studies,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Crossway, 1991, 2006), 457, 462, 463.

8. Matthew Emerson and Luke Stamps, “On Trinitarian Theological Method” and “Response to Bruce A. Ware and Matthew B. Yarnell III,” in Trinitarian Theology: Theological Models and Doctrinal Application, ed. Keith Whitfield (B&H, 2019).

9. Emerson and Stamps, “Response,” 131.

10. Emerson and Stamps, “Response,” 132.

11. Emerson and Stamps, “Response,” 131.

12. Emerson and Stamps, “Response,” 133.

13. Emerson and Stamps, “Response,” 135–36.

14. Emerson and Stamps, “Response,” 136.

15. Emerson and Stamps have responded to Grudem and his ST2: “On the Biblical and Historical Doctrine of the Trinity: A Response to Wayne Grudem,” The Logos Academic Blog: https://academic.logos.com/ on-the-biblical-and-historical-doctrine-of-the-trinity-a-response-towayne-grudem/.

16. Philip B. Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters (Zondervan, 2009); Jamin Hübner, “Translating αὐϑεντέω (authenteō) in 1 Timothy 2:12,” Priscilla Papers 29/2 (Spring 2015) 16–26; Hübner, “Revisiting αὐϑεντέω in 1 Timothy 2:12: What Do the Extant Data Really Show?,” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 5/1 (Summer 2015) 41–70; Cynthia Long Westfall, “The Meaning of αὐθεντέω in 1 Timothy 2:12,” JGRChJ 10 (2014) 138–73; Westfall, Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women in Christ (Baker, 2016).

17. See the postscript in Al Wolters, “The Meaning of authenteō,” 65–115 in Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9–15, 3rd ed., ed. Andreas J. Köstenberger and Thomas R. Schreiner (Crossway, 2016) 114–15.

18. Grudem does note the debate between Payne and Köstenberger (ST2 1161–62 n.73) but offers a one-sided series of assertions that give little information as to why Köstenberger’s work should be preferred to Payne’s. This is a methodological failing.

19. See Wolters, “The Meaning of authenteō,” and the work of Westfall, Payne, and Hübner.

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20. He does not even cite the response to Payne by Thomas Schreiner in Women in the Church!

21. Michael H. Burer and Daniel B. Wallace, “Was Junia Really an Apostle? A Re-examination of Rom 16.7,” NTS 47 (2001) 76–91; Michael H. Burer, “Episēmoi en tois Apostolois in Rom 16:7 as ‘Well Known to the Apostles’: Further Defense and New Evidence,” JETS 58/4 (2015) 731–55.

22. One immediately thinks of the materials written by Richard S. Cervin, “A Note Regarding the Name ‘Junia(s)’ in Romans 16:7,” NTS 40 (1994) 464–70; Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Eerdmans, 2002) 166–86; Linda Belleville,“ Ἰουνίαν . . . ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις: A Re-examination of Romans 16.7 in Light of Primary Source Materials,” NTS 51 (2005) 231–49; Eldon J. Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle (Fortress, 2005); Dennis J. Preato, “Junia, A Female Apostle: An Examination of the Historical Record,” Priscilla Papers 33/2 (2019) 8–15; Yii-Jan Lin, “Junia: An Apostle Before Paul,” JBL 139/1 (2020) 191–209; Andrea Hartmann, “Junia—A Woman Lost in Translation: The Name IOYNIAN in Romans 16:7 and its History of Interpretation,” Open Theology 6/1 (2020) 646–60.

23. There is a rather amusing methodological inconsistency in this section. Grudem chides egalitarians for the novel nature of their alternative understanding of 1 Tim 2:12 and he believes the origins of this happened after 1966 (1163; although he admits in n.76 that some denominations ordained women long before that time). And yet, Grudem is content to utilize an argument first constructed by Wallace and Burer concerning Junia being “well-known to the apostles” which appears in full force in 2001. This interpretive blunder is surely unintentional, but it illustrates the incoherence of Grudem’s methodology.

ALLISON M. QUIENT is a PhD candidate in Divinity at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, specializing in Systematic Theology and New Testament. She was the recipient of The Jack and Phyllis Middleton Memorial Award for Excellence in Bible and Theology for her article “Eve Christology” in The Canadian-American Theological Review, and has contributed to Priscilla Papers and Mutuality.

REV. NICHOLAS RUDOLPH QUIENT is a PhD candidate in New Testament at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. He has published in The Evangelical Review of Theology and Priscilla Papers, and is the author of The Perfection of Our Faithful Wills (Wipf & Stock, 2019). He is ordained in the American Baptist Churches USA..

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Complementarianism Collapsing An Extended Review of Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit (Baker, 2021) Kevin Giles

In well over thirty years in debate with scholarly complementarians on the status and ministry of women and on the Trinity, I have been accused of rejecting the authority of the Bible, denying what the Bible clearly teaches on the man-woman and the divine FatherSon relationships, of being an “evangelical-feminist,” and even an Arian. While some theologians have been terribly uncharitable, I am delighted by the dignity of Matthew Barrett. When I decided to write a scholarly review of his book, Simply Trinity, I sent him what I had written for comment and criticism (as is my habit).

Matthew responded graciously and generously in a number of email exchanges. He related to me as an evangelical brother of Reformed convictions. After reading my extended review of Simply Trinity he made a detailed response. Wherever possible I have reworded, corrected, or deleted sentences or paragraphs that he thought were not fair or did not represent accurately his views.1 If only evangelical egalitarians and complementarians had been able to interact like this on the debates about the status and ministry of women and on the Trinity over the last thirty or so years, I am sure things would be very different today.

Matthew Barrett is associate professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri.

His book, Simply Trinity, is focused mainly on the doctrine of the Trinity, but how this doctrine bears on the relationship of the sexes comes up time and time again. He unambiguously confesses his theological position: I am a committed, convictional complementarian. I believe there are strong scriptural reasons for restricting the office of pastor to qualified males. I also believe the husband is the head of his wife and the wife is to submit to her husband. (250–51) This confession gives this book its great credibility and power.

Here we find a devastating critique of the dogma, invented and promulgated by complementarians, that the Father rules over the Son for all eternity by a “card-carrying” complementarian.

Another fact lending significance to Matthew’s book is that his theological formation took place in a cultural context where the eternal subordination in role and authority of the Son was taken to be what the Bible clearly teaches as basic to historic Trinitarian orthodoxy. He says one of his most influential theological teachers was Bruce Ware, under whom he studied for almost seven years.

Over time he came to see that “The Trinity I was taught [by Ware and other well-known evangelical scholars] was novel in many ways, manipulated for a variety of agendas” (45). “For more than a decade,” he wrote to me, “I heard highly respected evangelical professors and pastors teach on the eternal subordination of the Son, claiming this was what the Bible taught, in lectures at well-

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known evangelical seminaries, at large evangelical conferences and from the pulpit in evangelical churches.”

Few people are better equipped to write on complementarian teaching on the Trinity. For many years Matthew was an “insider.”

In chapter 1, Matthew tells the story of how many theologians in the last fifty years, including many of evangelical and Reformed persuasions, abandoned the historic doctrine of the Trinity enunciated in the creeds and confessions of the church. Among mainline theologians who have set out to revise the doctrine of the Trinity, he mentions Karl Rahner, Jürgen Moltmann, and Leonardo Boff, as three examples, and later in his book he adds Robert Jenson, Hans Frei, and Miroslav Volf. He says their aim was to improve the historic and confessional doctrine of the Trinity by revising it. For non-evangelicals to abandon and reject the confessional doctrine of the Trinity, historic orthodoxy, does not surprise those of us who are of from evangelical and Reformed traditions. What surprises us, as Matthew notes, is that prominent evangelicals took the same path, and he singles out the “young, restless, and Reformed” (21) as the worst offenders. Among the many evangelical leaders who openly departed from Trinitarian orthodoxy he mentions Wayne Grudem, Bruce Ware, John Feinberg, Robert Reymond, William Craig, and J. P. Moreland, adding that “there were many others” (24)—there certainly were. On a sombre note, he concludes, “Perhaps our Reformed resurgence is not all that Reformed after all” (21).

On looking back on his theological training, he says, what amazes him the most is that virtually all the evangelical theologies he read and all his “Reformed” lecturers denied the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son, a doctrine affirmed by the creeds and confessions of the church and embraced by virtually every significant theologian from the fourth century until the present time. For himself, he believes that, To affirm [the] eternal generation [of the Son] was the equivalent to confessing oneself to be a Christian, and a Bible-believing Christian at that. To deny eternal generation was to align yourself with heresy. (26) What Matthew wants to bring to the attention of his readers in ch.

1 is that there has been a predilection among theologians in recent years—liberal, Catholic, and evangelical/Reformed—to break with the historic and confessional doctrine of the Trinity, which represents the communally agreed interpretation of what the Bible says on this doctrine and other key doctrines. As individual theologians they have taken the liberty to revise and reformulate the doctrine of the Trinity in social categories, almost always to further one agenda or another close to their heart: socialism,

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ecumenism, pluralism, environmentalism, egalitarianism, and the subordination of women (30).

What those of evangelical and Reformed conviction must do in this critical hour, when the foundational doctrine of the Christian faith is under threat even by members of our own tribe, Matthew Barrett argues, is to listen to the best of theologians from the past and the creeds and confessions of the church that rule on how the Bible is rightly read on the doctrine of the Trinity and all the other important doctrines. These voices from the past do not stand over Scripture or replace Scripture. They tell us how the church across history has communally interpreted the Bible on doctrinal questions in dispute. He says until recently most theologians have believed that, To depart from the Nicene Creed was to depart from Biblical teaching itself. To abandon the Nicene Creed was to abandon the God of the Gospel itself. (37) In ch. 2, Matthew accurately outlines the fourth-century debate begun

by Arius on how the Father and the Son are related, which resulted in the Creed of Nicea of 325, and with a bit of sharpening in wording, in the Nicene Creed of 381. For Arius, God is identified as “the Father.”

He is a monad who cannot share his divine nature/being/essence with anyone else, otherwise there would be two or more Gods. The Son must therefore be a creature, yet a creature above all others. Arius agreed that the Son may rightly be said to be “begotten of the Father” in the sense that he was created by the Father in time. What unites the Father and the Son is not a oneness in divine being (ousia), but rather a oneness in “will.” The Son by necessity does the Father’s will (48).

He is like a human son who came into existence in time and, like all sons, he is set under his Father’s authority. “Don’t miss this point,” says Matthew, “With such emphasis on will, Arianism, not only [implies] an ontological subordination, but [also] a functional subordination [of the Son]” (49).

In reply to Arius, Athanasius insisted that, in eternally begetting the Son, the Father perfectly communicates his divine being to the Son. On this premise, Athanasius and later the three Cappadocian fathers, argued that the Father and the Son are homoousios— one in divine being (ousia)—and for this reason they are one in majesty, glory, and dominion (56). What differentiates them, and the only thing that differentiates them, are their “eternal relations of origin.” The Father is unbegotten God, the Son is begotten God (59). This sums up what later would be called “the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son,” a doctrine that unequivocally establishes the full divinity of the Father and the Son and at the same time indelibly distinguishes them as the Father and the Son. For Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers, homoousios was the key term that absolutely excluded any separating and dividing of the Father and the Son or any hierarchical ordering of the divine persons. These three Greek church fathers also insisted that the Triune God revealed in Scripture is “simple”—he cannot be divided into parts. Matthew emphasizes this term, “simple,” rather than homoousios. He says, “to say that the triune God is simple is to say that all that is true of the divine essence (eternity, immutability, etc.) is also true of each and every person of the Godhead. The Son is no exception to this rule; he too is simply God” (54).

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In this chapter, Matthew shows that he has mastered the fourth-century debate on the doctrine of the Trinity, something not common in writings on this doctrine among evangelicals, or to use his self-designation, the “young, restless, and Reformed.”

In ch. 3, Matthew outlines how the doctrine of the Trinity, the distinctive Christian doctrine of God, became a social agenda. He finds the roots of this development in eighteenthcentury liberal Protestantism, especially through the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834). These liberal theologians’ concerns were “not with speculative doctrines like the Trinity but with the ethics of God’s kingdom, and how those ethics might transform society” (73). These concerns reappeared in the 1960s in a book by the Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, who similarly argued that it was “high time to throw off the shackles of scholastic speculation and liberate the Trinity” (75). Rather than focusing on God’s Triune life in eternity (the so-called “immanent Trinity”), the modern theologian should focus on the Trinity in history, the “economy”—how God is revealed as three persons in this world. In stating this case he gives what has come to be called Rahner’s Rule: “The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the ‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity.” Rahner never explains what he means by this “rule,” and as a consequence, it has been interpreted in many different ways.

One interpretation that has widely been given is that Rahner is seeking to eclipse the immanent Trinity. The Trinity is nothing other than how God is revealed in the economy (77). This is how Jürgen Moltmann understands “the rule.” For him, the Trinity is a “community” of three co-equal divine persons bound together in perichoretic union which sets a political agenda, a “socialist” agenda, Barrett says (80). In a similar way, the Croatian Protestant theologian, Miroslav Volf, and the Brazilian Roman Catholic theologian, Leonardo Boff, construe the Trinity and insist on its social implications.

Next, Matthew turns to evangelical and Reformed “revisionist” theologians who in recent times have redefined the Trinity to further their own social agenda. Almost all of these are complementarians. The one exception he names is the egalitarian evangelical, Stanley Grenz, who died in 2005. Grenz definitely embraced a social doctrine of the Trinity echoing Moltmann, even if he did so cautiously and, near the end of his life, questioned the position he had taken. The most enthusiastic and most published revisionists were “The New Calvinists” led by Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware—who called themselves “complementarians” (91).

They fully embraced a social doctrine of the Trinity in which each divine person is differentiated and distinguished by the differing authority each exercises. This means they are related as “a functional hierarchy” (91). The Son “is subordinate to the supreme and absolute authority of the Father within the immanent Trinity” (91). In other words, the Father is identified and distinguished from the Son and the Spirit in that he is eternally supreme, and the Son by the fact that he is eternally subordinate to the Father and must obey him—and this can never be otherwise. Here we see how the argument for the eternal subordination of the Son led many complementarians to abandon the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. If what primarily distinguishes the Father

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and the Son is differing authority, then the historic position, that differing origination primarily differentiates the divine persons, has to be rejected. Complementarians who invented and promulgated this “novel” (as Matthew calls it) doctrine of the Trinity named it “the EFS position” (the Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son position). Behind this doctrine, Matthew says, lies a “social agenda . . . just as strong, if not stronger, than the [liberal] social trinitarians before them” (91). Their doctrine of a hierarchically ordered Trinity is “a paradigm and prototype for hierarchy in society, especially wives submitting to their husbands in the home” (91). In practice, this hierarchical ordering of the sexes, grounded in divine life, also excludes women from leadership in the church.

Barrett notes the circular nature of this argument. He says that “EFSers” Project the functional subordination of the Son to the Father during the incarnation back into the eternal, immanent Trinity, only to return to history in order to apply their hierarchy to gender roles. (91) What is more, he adds, in evangelical churches and seminaries that assumed the complementarian position, “Contemplating and praising the Trinity was not the end goal (as it should be), but the Trinity was used merely as a means to other ends” (92). And what are these other ends? Matthew does not name them at this point.

The primary one was undeniably the subordination of women.

In ch. 4, Matthew returns to Rahner and his Rule. This Rule, he believes, has led more theologians, mainline and evangelicalReformed, into theological error than anything else. To introduce this discussion, Matthew first outlines how deep and profound is the Bible’s teaching on the triunity of God. It is foreshadowed in the OT and fully revealed in the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit. What is not made clear and explicit in the NT is how what is revealed of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in history (the economy) speaks of the Father, Son, and Spirit in eternity (the immanent Trinity—God as he is for all eternity).

This, he says, is “the million-dollar question” (112). Many take Rahner’s Rule (“The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity and vice versa”) to be answering this question, but as Rahner never tells us his answer it is not surprising that subsequent theologians have reached different, and sometimes opposing, conclusions. Complementarians in unison have argued that Rahner’s Rule means that, just as the Son is subordinated to the Father and must obey him in his earthly ministry (the economy), so he is subordinated to the Father and must obey him in the immanent Trinity, or we might say, in heaven. Matthew says this interpretation is profoundly wrong, and I absolutely agree with him. Rahner is an orthodox Catholic theologian, and Catholic theology anathematises any sub-ordering in divine life or work.

He does not say one word in support of the eternal subordination of the Son, and much to the contrary. What is more, the Bible also excludes this interpretation of Rahner’s Rule as an option for evangelicals. Philippians 2:4–11 makes it quite clear that in the incarnation we see the self-emptied divine Son, not the Son as he is eternally, one with the Father in all might, majesty, and power.

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This means we cannot “project” back into the eternal Triune life what we see in the economy (116).

In ch. 5, Matthew addresses the mind-boggling question, how God can be one and three at one and the same time for all eternity. The Bible gives a few hints as to how this question can be answered, but it was the great Christian thinkers in the postapostolic age who developed a full and satisfying answer that was first spelt out in the Nicene Creed of 325. They answered, because each divine person is described as God in the NT, we may rightly speak of them as homoousios, or in Latin, consubstantial, one in divine being. The one God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit— one God in three persons.

For Athanasius, the word homoousios completely excluded any separating and dividing of the divine persons, but he also makes much of the fact that Jesus says he is in the Father and the Father is in him (John 10:38; 14:11, 20). If they mutually indwell each other, he reasons, they cannot be divided or separated in any way. Later theologians called their mutual interpenetration, in Greek, their perichoresis, and in Latin, circumincessio.

Matthew speaks positively of the terms homoousios and perichoresis but, as I have already noted, he favours another term to exclude any separating and dividing of the Father and the Son—and the Spirit. God is “simple.” He calls his book Simply Trinity to make this point. Matthew Barrett stands 100% within orthodoxy in speaking of our Triune God as “simple.” Thomas Aquinas made divine simplicity the first of the divine attributes.

Nevertheless, in my writings on the Trinity I avoid this word. For me, it does not describe the God I see in Scripture. He is definitely not “simple” in the everyday meaning of this world. Here we should note that describing God as “simple” originates with the pre-Christian Greek philosophers and that many evangelical theologians have argued it is not a helpful way to describe the God revealed in Scripture.

Notwithstanding what I have just said, I concede that Matthew, in asserting that our Triune God is “simple” and defining this term in the light of Thomas Aquinas’s definition, finds a powerful way to exclude any dividing or separating of the divine three who are the one God. For Matthew, to say God is “simple” means we believe, Not [in] a God made up of parts, but a God without parts. There is in him no composition, nor can he be compounded by parts. If he could, he would then be a divided being (parts are divisible by definition), a mutable being (parts are prone to change), a temporal being (parts require a composer), and a dependent being (depending on the parts as if they precede him). (137) Matthew argues that defining God as “simple excludes the three trinitarian heresies of our age, Sabellianism/modalism, tritheism and “social trinitarianism” (149, cf. 227, 256). If the God revealed in Scripture is “simple” he cannot be one divine person “who merely changes into three different forms” (145) or modes in history (as in modalism). If the God revealed in Scripture is “simple” he cannot be three separate and divided persons, each with their own will and consciousness (as in tritheism). So far so good. But when he comes to the third error, “social trinitarianism,” he loses me.

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Yes, if God is “simple,” as he defines the term, then God cannot have three wills and “three centres of consciousness,” but is this not tritheism? “Social trinitarianism,” I believe, is nothing more or less than an expression of tritheism (as Matthew says, 149) with a social agenda Subordinationism is certainly the most common Trinitarian heresy among evangelicals today, as elsewhere in his book Matthew acknowledges, but in this chapter it does not get a mention. Why Matthew at this point makes “social trinitarianism” a separate and distinctive theological error, when it is almost universally agreed that it is nothing more or less than an expression of tritheism with a social agenda, is puzzling. I suspect that Matthew does recognise that subordinationism is an expression of tritheism that can take one of two forms. For liberal and Catholic social Trinitarians, the three divine persons, each with their own will and consciousness, are profoundly equal, bound together by mutual love and selfgiving in perichoretic union. Pictorially, the divine three stand in a circle with hands linked. They are guilty of the error of tritheism but not subordinationism. Their social agenda is to promote social equality wherever possible. In stark contrast, for evangelical social Trinitarians of EFS convictions the three divine persons are not equal in “role” and “authority.” Specifically, they insist the Father rules over the Son for all eternity. Pictorially, the divine three stand in hierarchical order. This means these evangelical social Trinitarians are guilty of both the errors of tritheism and subordinationism. For them, Matthew says, their “social agenda is . . . just as strong, if not stronger, than the [liberal] social trinitarians before them” (91). For evangelical and Reformed theologians who argue for the eternal subordination of the Son, their hierarchically ordered social doctrine of the Trinity is “a paradigm and prototype for hierarchy in society, especially wives submitting to their husbands in the home” (91).

Matthew concludes this chapter mainly on divine simplicity with an insightful informed discussion of the Athanasian Creed (150–54). In this creed we confess, he says, that The Godhead (Father, Son, and Spirit) is “all one,” and if all one, then there must be total equality: “their glory equal, their majesty co-eternal.” Apart from one thing that distinguishes them (i.e., eternal relations of origin: paternity filiation, spiration), they all wholly share all the properties of God’s undivided essence.” (152) In this creed he also notes all three divine persons are said to be “almighty” and “co-equal.”

Chapter 6 is entirely an explanation and defence of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. I am the only evangelical of Reformed convictions that has written a full-length book on this topic,2 but he does not footnote me once in this chapter, and only once in the chapter following. I nevertheless highly commend his exposition and support of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son, noting that he has read widely on this matter and sees all the issues clearly and well. What I would have liked to have seen in this chapter is an admission that, just as evangelical egalitarians initiated and led the evangelical and Reformed opposition to the

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eternal subordination of the Son, so too evangelical egalitarians initiated and led the evangelical and Reformed opposition to the denial of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. Chapter 7 continues his discussion on the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son, arguing that this doctrine is predicated on what the Scriptures teach about the Father-Son relationship. His appeal to Scripture in support of this doctrine is comprehensive and compelling.

In ch. 8 Matthew brings his argument to a crescendo. Simply Trinity is worth buying for what he says in this chapter. Here we read the most profound and well-informed renunciation of the idea that the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father in role and authority, a belief that almost took over the evangelical world and was absolutely basic to the complementarian position for “decades” (222). He writes as someone who has imbibed complementarian teaching on women and the Trinity for a large portion of his life—he writes, in other words, as an “insider.”

I have read everything I can find on what complementarians have taught about the Trinity, written four books on this matter over a twenty-year period, and have publicly debated complementarian theologians, including Ware and Grudem, in large gatherings of evangelical theologians, and I still learnt some things from this chapter.

Matthew is emphatic, to teach that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in role and authority is to deny the historic orthodox doctrine of the Trinity predicated firmly in scriptural revelation. He says Ware “openly rejected the orthodox creeds and the Great Tradition, and did so with confidence” (220).

Again, in this chapter Matthew Barrett identifies Ware, Grudem, and all supporters of the EFS doctrine of the Trinity as “social trinitarians” who see the Trinity as a hierarchically ordered community of three persons, each with their own will and consciousness, and who prescribe a “social agenda . . . just as strong, if not stronger, than the [liberal] social trinitarians before them” (91). It gives a “pattern,” a “paradigm,” a “prototype” for every relationship in the world (221), but especially and specifically “for gender roles in the workplace, ministry and the home” (221). “In fervent opposition to evangelical egalitarianism which sees male and female as equals in authority, EFS argues for complementarianism, which sees the husband as the head of his wife, and the wife’s ‘role’ as one of submission to her husband” (221). “These roles,” he adds, are “intrinsic” to the identity of both the Father and the Son and men and women (222). “The Son cannot be the Son if not subordinate, so the wife cannot be wife if not subordinate” (222).

Matthew dates the beginning of the revolt against the EFS doctrine of the Trinity, or what I would call, “the complementarian doctrine of the Trinity,” to a blog by the complementarian theologian Liam Goligher on June 3, 2016 (222). He knows this is not the case, but he told me in personal correspondence that he gives this late date because his publisher wanted him to be brief.

The history in more detail is this: What I call the “complementarian doctrine of the Trinity” was first enunciated

by George Knight III in his seminal book, The New Testament

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Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women, published in 1977.3 He invented the idea that men and women and the divine Father and Son are differentiated by differing “roles” and “authority” and that the hierarchical ordering of the divine persons in heaven is prescriptive for the man-woman relationship on earth. Huge numbers of evangelicals, in ignorance of the creedal and confessional doctrine of the Trinity, embraced his novel and heretical doctrine of the Trinity because they saw it gave the most profound theological basis possible for the permanent subordination of women. Under the leadership of Wayne Grudem, John Piper, Bruce Ware, Don Carson and countless other well-known evangelical theologians, who called themselves “complementarians,” the eternal subordination of the Son in heaven became the dominant argument in support of the subordination of women on earth.

As far as I can see, the first evangelical to point out in print that what complementarians were teaching on the Trinity is illogical and contrary to historic orthodoxy, was the highly respected evangelical theologian, Millard Erickson, in his book, God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity, published in 1995.4 He says, “A temporal, functional subordination [of the Son] without inferiority of essence seems possible, but not an eternal subordination.”5 In other words, he is saying the eternal subordination of the Son implies by necessity a subordination in “essence” (being), or we might say, the “ontological subordination” of the Son. In 1997, a detailed and well-informed frontal attack on complementarian teaching on the Trinity followed in an article in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, written by a well-known professor at Wheaton College, Gilbert Bilezikian.6 He argued that this teaching was undeniably heretical, a modern-day counterpart of Arianism. From the early 1990s, I was opposing the idea that the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father in lectures and in reviews of complementarian publications, and in 2002 I published The Trinity and Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God and the Contemporary Gender Debate, which is still in print.7 Then, in 2006, I published Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity.8 Both books are listed by Matthew in his bibliography (pp. 352ff.), but he never refers to them in the text of his book. Before 2016, I also published at least a dozen scholarly articles opposing any hierarchical ordering of the three divine persons in the immanent Trinity.9 I also note at this point that Matthew does not list in his bibliography or mention at any point in the text my 2017 book, The Rise and Fall of the Complementarian Doctrine of the Trinity, which he tells me he has read. This book gives in great detail the story I have just outlined.10 But it is not only that evangelical egalitarian theologians were strongly condemning the EFS doctrine of the Trinity long before Goligher wrote in 2016. Two well-informed Reformed women, Rachel Miller and Aimee Byrd, both complementarians, had done so two years before him.11 It was female complementarians who first pulled the brake cord.12 Matthew knows this. Why does he attribute the first assault on EFS by complementarians to a male complementarian?

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In ch. 8, Matthew Barrett rightly identifies the three great Trinitarian errors or heresies as Sabellianism (or as we call it today modalism), tritheism, and subordinationism as taught by Arius. In every complementarian publication before 2016, we were told by complementarians (I have found no exceptions) that the eternal subordination of the Son in role and authority does not imply, let alone suggest, the ontological subordination of the Son. This denial was a complementarian mantra repeated time and time again. Matthew’s rebuttal of this mantra is devasting.

He says that if the Son’s subordination is eternal, and it can never be otherwise, then it must be ontological in nature; the Son’s subordination defines who he is, his being. He says, It is fallacious to say there is something ontological as supposed to something functional within the immanent Trinity. This is a strange dichotomy, one that is not just novel in every way but antithetical to biblical, Nicene orthodoxy. In all their exegesis of Scripture, the proNicene fathers would never have recognised such categories. The Nicene Creed never refers to “roles” of hierarchy within the immanent Trinity. To speak of the immanent Trinity was always to speak of ontology. (232) Then he adds a knock-out punch: “Inventing a division between ontological and functional is a farce” (236).

I, and other egalitarian evangelical theologians, have been making this argument for more than thirty years. Now we have a gender complementarian agreeing with us. To eternally subordinate the Son in role and authority necessarily implies his ontological subordination. This means the EFS doctrine of the Trinity, first devised by complementarians and then enthusiastically propagated by complementarians up to 2016, is a form of the heresy called “subordinationism,” narrowly defined as the ontological subordination of the Son, or more accurately and broadly defined as the error of sub-ordering—or we might say, hierarchically ordering—in any way, the divine persons in the eternal or immanent Trinity.13 What I am uneasy about in ch. 8 is that Matthew almost entirely critiques the EFS position and those who support it. If you did not know that complementarians invented, and for forty years promulgated the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son in role and authority, making it foundational to the complementarian position, you would never realise that it is more accurate to call what he is critiquing, the “complementarian doctrine of the Trinity.” Yes, a small number of gender complementarians in recent years have made trenchant criticisms of their fellow complementarians for corrupting the doctrine of the Trinity to support their belief in the permanent subordination of women, and Matthew is among these few brave souls, but I say confidently that for about forty years all those who affirmed the eternal subordination of the Son, and all those who still do, are complementarians. On p. 250, Matthew says “EFSers have exerted no little effort to present their position as the complementarian view.” I think they have been very successful in doing this.

In a large gathering in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia, arranged as a debate between complementarians

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and evangelical egalitarians, the first speaker defending the complementarian case argued that the doctrine of the Trinity that ordered the divine persons hierarchically was prescriptive for the hierarchical ordering of the sexes on earth. In reply, I pointed out that the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church and the Athanasian Creed, both binding on us as ordained Anglicans, explicitly excluded the hierarchical ordering of the persons of the Trinity. When I finished speaking, a bishop on the other side of the debate jumped to his feet and with great vehemence said, “Kevin, we complementarians will never give way to you on the Trinity. To do so would weaken our case for the headship of men and the subordination of women.” In my opinion he summed up accurately what virtually all complementarians for many decades believed. The complementarian belief in the permanent subordination of women was inextricably connected with and predicated on belief in the eternal subordination of the Son. What Matthew does not acknowledge is that, for complementarians, their abandonment of their doctrine of a hierarchically ordered Trinity which they dogmatically claimed was clearly taught in Scripture, has mortally wounded their case for the hierarchical ordering of the sexes. If they have “lost” the debate about the Trinity, which they said was the most important element in their case for the permanent subordination,14 then surely the latter stands in a very precarious situation. It too is threatened with collapse and defeat. Maybe complementarians have got what the Bible teaches on the man-woman relationship dead wrong, just as they did with the Trinity. Maybe evangelical egalitarians are reading the Bible rightly as they did with the Trinity. For evangelical egalitarians, the subordination of women is entirely due to the fall, as Gen 3:16 makes clear, and as such should be opposed by Christians. The creation ideal is seen in Gen 1:27ff. where God bestows on man and woman the same status and dignity, commissions them both to govern God’s world standing side by side, not one over the other, and the family mandate is a responsibility given to both sexes. Jesus embraces this view of the sexes, saying not one word on “male headship” and its corollary, the permanent subordination of women, and much to the contrary. A single text, 1 Tim 2:8–15, cannot save the day for complementarians.

Everything said in every verse in this passage says something that has no parallel in the rest of the Bible. It is obviously addressing an exceptional situation and its teaching is thus not normative.15 What we Christians should take as normative is what Scripture as a whole says on the status, leadership abilities, and ministry of men and women, not one idiosyncratic text.

Chapter 9 focuses entirely on the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. What Matthew says is inspiring. After reading the chapter twice, it seems to me he gets it all right. He captures well what the Bible says on the Spirit and accurately outlines the doctrine of the eternal procession or spiration of the Spirit that guarantees that the Spirit is both a distinct divine person yet sharing in the one undivided divine being. He is the Spirit and he is fully God. In ch. 10 Matthew discusses the doctrine of “inseparable operations” which is basic to the historic and confessional doctrine of the Trinity but denied by EFSers. Basic to the EFS and complementarian position until 2016 was the dogma that 28 • Priscilla Papers

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God has given “different roles” to each person of the Trinity.

The fundamental “role” of the Father is to command, and the fundamental “role” of the Son is to obey. Matthew says that, like all social trinitarians, EFSers think of the three divine persons as individuals each with their own will and work. The historic and confessional doctrine of the Trinity puts up again the sign, Go back you are going the wrong way.16 The God revealed in Scripture is homoousios/one in being. Because the three persons are one in being, they cannot be separated or divided; they must always work as one. This is called the doctrine of “inseparable operations.” This doctrine does not deny that some divine works or operations are “appropriately” associated with one divine person, such as the Father with creation, the Son with salvation, and the Spirit with sanctification, but never to the exclusion of the other two. This is called the doctrine of “divine appropriations.”

Conclusion Simply Trinity is a very significant contribution to the contemporary debate about the doctrine of the Trinity among evangelical and Reformed Christians. Matthew writes as an informed Trinitarian theologian of gender complementarian convictions, who studied under Bruce Ware. His repudiation of the EFS doctrine of the Trinity in ch. 8 is so compelling that the book is worth buying just for this chapter. The great strength of his book is that he writes as an “insider.” He is a “card carrying” gender complementarian. Sadly, I fear he may soon become an “outsider” because complementarian leaders do not tolerate critics of their position. For most male complementarians, their doctrine of “male headship” is the most important doctrine for them. It guarantees their pre-eminence. It cannot be questioned.

The shadow cast by Matthew’s complementarian convictions is the great weakness of this book. He does not acknowledge that egalitarian evangelicals of Reformed conviction were the first to oppose the denial of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son, and that they were the first, by a long-shot, to oppose the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son, a doctrine exclusively promulgated by complementarians. Further, he cannot unambiguously acknowledge that until 2016 most complementarian theologians inextricably tied together their doctrine of the permanent subordination of women and the eternal subordination of the Son. Nor can he see that the defeat of the complementarian embrace of the EFS doctrine of the Trinity, which complementarians said was clearly taught in Scripture, raises the question acutely of whether the complementarian teaching on the permanent subordination of women (euphemistically called “role subordination”) is clearly taught in Scripture. Egalitarian evangelicals argue that it is not, indeed that it is contrary to Scripture read holistically. I am convinced they are right on this as they were on the Trinity.

I completely agree with the gender complementarian, Carl Trueman, long-time professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, when he says, Complementarianism as currently constructed would seem to be now in crisis. But this is a crisis of its own making—the direct result of the incorrect historical

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and theological arguments upon which the foremost advocates of the movement have chosen to build their case and which cannot actually bear the weight being placed upon them.17 I note that within the last year, Beth Moore, the most listened to speaker in the Southern Baptist Convention, has also reached this conclusion after years of struggle and maltreatment, that the permanent subordination of women is not what the Bible clearly teaches and has left the SBC.18 Will she be the first complementarian to break ranks on this hugely important issue for so many male evangelical pastors? Here I remind my readers that two complementarian women were the first to break ranks on the doctrine of the Trinity embraced until that time by all complementarians.19

Postscript After several email exchanges with Matthew, I was keen to find out how our marriages were different, for we both claimed to have idyllic marriages. We could not be happier as couples. I wanted to know this because Matthews says, “I am a committed, convictional complementarian,” and I would say, I am a committed, convictional evangelical egalitarian. Our theology of marriage is thus very different, but what I wanted to know is how our marriages differed in practice. I have always thought our theology should determine how we live and relate to others.

I pressed Matthew on this question because the evidence is now in. “Happy” marriages in today’s world are almost by definition profoundly equal relationships, and “unhappy” marriages almost by definition are profoundly unequal relationships. I was not at all surprised to find that in practice our marriages were basically the same. Despite our contradictory theological positions on the man-woman relationship, it seems our marriages operate in much the same way. We two men both love our wives deeply, value their support and advice, make all important decisions conjointly with them, and do all we can to enrich their lives. We would never seek to impose our will on them. In other words, in practice we both have profoundly equal marriages.

In closing, I ask, how can the complementarian theology of the sexes not collapse if complementarians themselves are not putting it into practice and if many of them have agreed that their doctrine of a hierarchically ordered Trinity, on which they built so much, is heretical?

7. Kevin Giles, The Trinity and Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God and the Contemporary Gender Debate (InterVarsity, 2002).

8. Kevin Giles, Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity (Zondervan, 2006).

9. For example, “The Doctrine of the Trinity and Subordinationism,” Evangelical Review of Theology 28/3 (July 2004) 270–84; “The Evangelical Theological Society and the Doctrine of the Trinity,” EQ 80/4 (Oct 2008) 323–38; “The Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity,” Priscilla Papers 26/3 (Summer 2012) 12–23; “Defining the Error Called Subordinationism,” EQ 87/3 (2015) 207–24.

10. Kevin Giles, The Rise and Fall of the Complementarian Doctrine of the Trinity (Cascade, 2017).

11. For further reading from these authors, see Aimee Byrd, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose (Zondervan, 2020); https://AimeeByrd. com; Rachel Green Miller, Beyond Authority and Submission: Women and Men in Marriage, Church, and Society (P&R, 2019); https:// RachelGreenMiller.com.

12. I tell this story in Giles, Rise and Fall, 39–41.

13. See Giles, “Defining the Error,” 207–24.

14. In The Rise and Fall of the Complementarian Doctrine of the Trinity, 52–54, 110–14, I document how the leading complementarian theologians with one voice agreed that their hierarchical ordering of the sexes in heaven was foundational to their case for the hierarchical ordering of the sexes on earth.

15. See my book, What the Bible Actually Teaches about Women (Cascade, 2018), 94–104.

16. Millard J. Erickson, Who's Tampering with the Trinity? An Assessment of the Subordination Debate (Kregel, 2009) 258: “If indeed, the next generation of theologians move to this idea of ontological subordination, then much of what present-day conservative Trinitarian theologians . . . have worked so hard to preserve will be threatened.

I therefore echo [Kevin] Giles’s plea . . . ‘Go back. You are going the wrong way.’”

17. “Fahrenheit 381,” Mortification of Spin, June 7, 2016, http:// mor tif icationofspin.org/mos/p ostcards-f rom-palo okaville/ fahrenheit-381.

18. See Bob Smietana, “Bible teacher Beth Moore, splitting with Lifeway, says, ‘I am no longer a Southern Baptist,’” Religion News Service (March 9, 2021), https://religionnews.com/2021/03/09/bibleteacher-beth-moore-ends-partnership-with-lifeway-i-am-no-longer-asouthern-baptist/.

19. Giles, Rise and Fall, 39–41.

Notes 1. I sent back to him my edited manuscript. He then asked for a small number of other corrections which I gladly made.

2. Kevin Giles, The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (IVP Academic, 2012), 270 pgs.

3. George W. Knight III, The New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women (Baker, 1977).

4. Millard J. Erickson, God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity (Baker, 1995).

5. Erickson, God in Three Persons, 17.

6. “Hermeneutical Bungee-Jumping: Subordination in the Trinity,” JETS 40 (1197) 57–68.

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KEVIN GILES is an Australian Anglican minister who was in parish ministry for over forty years. He holds a doctorate in New Testament and has authored numerous articles and books, some of which are in the endnotes above. Kevin lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife, Lynley, a social worker and marriage counsellor. They have been partners with CBE International since its inception.

Priscilla Papers | 35/2 | Spring 2021 • 29

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CBE INTERNATIONAL (Christians for Biblical Equality) 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 | 35/2 | Spring 2021 • 31

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Discovering Biblical Equality Biblical, Theological, Cultural, and Practical Perspectives Edited by Ronald W. Pierce and Cynthia Long Westfall Associate Editor Christa L. McKirland The conversation about gender roles in Christian life and the church has evolved, but the topic continues to inspire debate and disagreement. Now in its third edition, this fresh, positive defense of women’s equality brings together scholars firmly committed to the authority of Scripture to explore historical, biblical, theological, cultural, and practical aspects of this discussion.

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The Headship of Men and the Abuse of Women Are They Related in Any Way? Kevin Giles In this book, Giles surveys the available scientific information on this matter and notes the consensus that 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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Redeeming Power Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church

Diane Langberg Power has a God-given role in human relationships and institutions, but it can lead to abuse when used in unhealthy ways. Langberg offers a clinical and theological framework for understanding how power operates, the effects of the abuse of power, and how power can be redeemed and restored to its proper God-given place. This book helps leaders identify and resist abusive systems and also shows how they can use power to protect the vulnerable in their midst.

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Instead, it can provide new opportunities for discovery and growth within our marriages. With vulnerability and insight, Marriage in the Middle will inspire and encourage you to invest in your relationship with your spouse, enabling you both to thrive as you face the challenges and changes of this era together.

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