Speaker: Claire Smith – author of God’s Good Design: What the Bible really says about Men and Women and The Appearing of God Our Savior: A Theology of the Letters to Timothy and Titus – delivered the keynote at the latest Priscilla and Aquila Centre (P&A) seminar.
In this talk, Claire traces the history of the term complementarianism, explaining its development as a theological category and its interaction with cultural trends over the past forty years.
Part 1: Why “Complementarianism” needed a name
1. Introduction
1988 Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) annual meeting
Formation of Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW)
“Complementarian”
“Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood”
2. Historical context
a. Second Wave Feminism and Social change
Enlightenment
Post World War II
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963): “the problem that has no name”
Patriarchy operated at a societal/structural and individual level
Essential differences between the sexes
Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (1970): “Patriarchy has God on its side”.
b. Feminism in the church
i) Women’s ordination
ii) Formation of egalitarian organisations and publications
1974 Evangelical Women’s Caucus (EWC)
“Biblical feminism”
1986 split over lesbianism and homosexual rights
1990 Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC)
Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex: Towards a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (1968); Beyond God the Father (1973).
Daly, “If God is male, then male is God”. (Beyond God the Father)
c. Three developments leading to “Complementarianism”
Publishing of books from both sides
Evangelical colloquium on Women and the Bible (October 1984) in Oak Brook, Illinois.
1986 ETS annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, theme: “Male and Female in Biblical and Theological Perspective”
3. Formation of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW)
Wayne Grudem at ETS 1986
1987 ETS meeting in Danvers, Massachusetts
1988 ETS meeting in Wheaton, Illinois CBMW goes public
January 1989, double page “ad” in Christianity Today
1991 Crossway publish Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the “blue book” edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem
1992 readers of Christianity Today vote RBMW “Book of the Year”.
4. Formation of Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE)
1986 ETS meeting in Atlanta “a milestone”
1987 Egalitarians start new journal called Priscilla Papers
January 2, 1988, Christians for Biblical Equality formally established
Founders, Catherine Kroeger, Gretchen Hull, and Alvera Mickelsen
1989, CBE produced their statement of belief Men, Women, and Biblical Equality
2004/2005 first editions of Discovering Biblical Equality, the “orange book”
5. Common ground between complementarians and evangelical egalitarians
a) Domestic abuse
Both committed to and concerned for the welfare of women and children and oppose all domestic abuse.1
Attempt to make joint statement saying “abuse within marriage is wrong”
CBE board rejected
CBMW publish statement on their own
b) Acknowledge need for change
c) Recognition of Christian fellowship
d) Same words, different meanings?
Part 2: Lived Complementarianism
6. The label “complementarian”
Piper and Grudem: “[complementarian] suggests both equality and beneficial differences between men and women” RBMW, xiii–iv.
“Traditionalist”
“Hierarchicalist”
“Patriarchy”
7. Formation of Equal but Different (EBD)
Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW), formed in Sydney in 1983
1992 General Synod Anglican Church of Australia
Patricia Judge
Priscilla and Aquila Centre, established in 2011, under direction of Jane Tooher
8. Gender-inclusive Bible translation
March 1997 cover-story World magazine: “The Stealth Bible: The Popular New International Version Bible is Quietly Going “Gender-Neutral””
“The Feminist Seduction of the Evangelical Church: Femme Fatale”, by Susan Olasky
1996 New International Version Inclusive Language (NIVI)
Complementarians are divided
NIV (2011)
English Standard Version (ESV)
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HSBC), now Christian Standard Bible (CSB)
Gender translation philosophy
8. The reach and reason for the biblical differences
a. The reach of the biblical differences
b. The reason for the biblical differences
2016 the Trinity debates
“Thin-or-narrow-or-ideological” and “thick-or-broad-or-natural”
9. Responding to third wave feminism and LGBTQ+
a) Discovering Biblical Equality, third edition (2021)
“Slippery slope”
“Non-affirming and affirming evangelicals”
Rejection of gender essentialism
b) The Nashville Statement (2017)
Endnote
1 Danvers: Rationale 6; Affirmation 4, 6.
