November 2005

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Perhaps the time is right for egalitarians and complementarians to work together to further the cause of Christ and advance the gospel of life in a culture increasingly marked by violence, decay, and death. I want to suggest a tentative agenda—nine tasks that I believe could be helpfully pursued by persons of goodwill and high moral imagination from both communities.

Egalitarians and complementarians have, of course, been studying the Bible overtime on gender issues. But apart from several books on the subject that present varying views, much of this work exists in discrete silos of scholarship that lack the dynamism and cross-fertilization of an interactive approach.

Evangelicalism at its heart is a renewal movement within historic Christian orthodoxy. Egalitarians and complementarians stand together on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ—the only foundation that can be laid, Paul says—expressed in the great creeds and teachings of the church. These are not trivial theological ideas, but the very heart of the gospel message, which Paul declared in 1 Corinthians 15 to be "of first importance."

People change their minds from time to time. I would like to hear stories from those who have undergone conversions on this issue. Such testimonies can help us understand why certain ideas are persuasive, causing us to ask where we sense the Holy Spirit may be leading us. I would like to hear a discussion, for example, between Craig Keener, an egalitarian scholar who used to be a complementarian, and Father Patrick Henry Reardon, an Antiochian Orthodox priest who used to be an Episcopalian egalitarian.

I propose ...