Mars Hill Bible Church opened its doors in February of 1999 with a stated desire to exist as a "church where scripture would be taught in a new way, a way that would reach a changing culture."

Gary Knapp and his wife, Becky, were among the first members of the Grandville, Mich., church, which now numbers more than 1,000 members and some 10,000 weekly attendees. Knapp taught an adult Bible class at Mars Hill and led a small group in the church for more than two years.

Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis. By William J. Webb. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001. 301 pp. n.p.

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes I wonder if egalitarians hope to triumph in the debate on the role of women by publishing book after book on the subject. Each work propounds a new thesis which explains why the traditional interpretation is flawed. Complementarians could easily give in from sheer exhaustation, thinking that so many books written by such a diversity of different authors could scarcely be wrong. Further, it is difficult to keep writing books promoting the complementarian view. Our view of the biblical text has not changed dramatically in the last twenty five years. Should we continue to write books that essentially promote traditional interpretations? Is the goal of publishing to write what is true or what is new?

The Apostle Paul prohibits the exercise of authority over men by women when he says, "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, for Adam was created first, then Eve" (1 Tim. 2:12-13, NAS95).

With this simple statement Paul explicitly affirms what is implicit throughout God's Word, that the order of creation establishes patriarchy as God's pattern for leadership in human relationships. Addressing the matter of propriety in prayer, the Apostle Paul again emphasizes this order:

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.
1 Cor. 11:8-9, NAS95.

Imagine a new believer, thoroughly confused by the sexual anarchy of today's culture, discovering the truth inherent in passages such as 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, 14:34-35, Ephesians 5:22-33, 1 Timothy 2:9-15, and 1 Peter 3:1-7. What a deep sense of relief to discover that the order of creation establishes timeless principles for the relationships between men and women.

The last few decades have witnessed an increasing awareness of the importance of hermeneutical procedure in interpreting the gender passages in the NT. Grant Osborne contends that "the determining factor in the discussion [of gender passages in the NT] is hermeneutical."¹ Robert Johnston attributes the differences in approach regarding the role of women in the church taken by evangelicals to "different hermeneutics," calling the study of women's roles a "test case" of evangelical interpretation.²

If Johnston is correct, evangelical hermeneutics seem to have failed the test, since the existing exegetical conclusions on the NT gender texts vary widely. What is perhaps even more disturbing is the apparent lack of consensus regarding a proper methodology.

In 1974, when I left the States to teach in "godless" France, the cultural revolution was a Left coast/San Fran' phenom', and America was still "Christian." When I returned in 1991, I was in for culture shock, but still never imagined what lay ahead.

One man warned us. In 1978, Pastor Charles Mcllhenny recorded his experiences after his church fired a homosexual organist (When the Wicked Seize a City). Church property was repeatedly vandalized and his family almost killed by a firebomb. "Law enforcement" never found the culprits. Mcllhenny used San Francisco as a striking example of what America might become. Are we "goin' to San Francisco?" as the 60s hit song asked?

The publicity brochure of the New Revised Standard Version sounds so sensible. At last, we are told, misleading, masculine-oriented language has been removed from the Bible. Jesus no longer says, "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (RSV), but instead, "And I...will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32, NRSV).

This is an improvement: the word men isn't specified by the Greek text, and all people is a faithful rendering of the Greek pronoun pas. Changes like this use "gender-neutral" language without sacrificing accuracy in translation. In addition, the NRSV has not gone as far as some people wanted, because it still calls God "Father" (not "Parent"), for example, and calls Jesus the "Son of God" (not "Child of God")--probably in large measure due to the conservative influence of the chairman of the NRSV translation committee, evangelical New Testament scholar Bruce Metzger.

But there are many other changes -- literally, thousands -- that should cause evangelicals much concern. The translators consistently disregarded precise, grammatically correct English equivalents and resorted to gender-neutral paraphrases. The preface explains that the copyright holder (the Division of Education and Ministry of the National Council of Churches of Christ) required that "masculine-oriented language should be eliminated as far as this can be done without altering passages that reflect the historical situation of ancient patriarchal culture." To fulfil this requirement, the translation committee explains that it had to depart from its ordinary principles of making "essentially a literal translation."

Jumping Right In
We live in an interesting time of twisted confusion regarding the nature of gender. Men and women wonder how to relate to one another in the home, the workplace, and in the churches of Jesus Christ. In many ways our world is more just, more equitable, and more open than any society in history. Great strides have been made to afford freedom in the workplace, political participation, and education for women in our culture. Yet our understanding of ourselves has also greatly eroded with many social struggles and aches. What began in western culture to bring equality has led to a world that despises our differences, sees gender as a mere social construction, with both biblical masculinity and femininity cast aside. To be honest, it is simply an affront to the modern mind that God created us uniquely and distinctly as male and female, both biologically and psychologically. Though modern research is showing that down to our very brains, we are different, many persist in believing that men and women should occupy the same roles and spaces in the home and culture. We live in a time when men are thought to be capable of being as good a mother as a mother and fatherhood is quickly becoming an endangered art. Take all this into the dating world and many just scratch their heads. In this paper my goals are not ambitious. I want to look briefly at our struggles with being a man or a woman in our society. Second, I want to look at some of the confusion which is displayed both in pop culture and in academia regarding gender. In doing so I will look at the word Feminism and strike fear into the hearts of the men – just kidding, but we will look at the strengths and weaknesses of feminism. Finally, I will close with a very brief treatment of gender according to the Bible with application to the family and the church. This will not be an in-depth research paper; just some analysis which I hope will assist us forward in our discussions of being men and women. So let us begin with our struggles…with each other, with ourselves.

Introduction
To someone not conversant with contemporary theological writings, it may come as something of a surprise to learn that the historic doctrine of the Trinity is undergoing considerable scrutiny, reassessment, reformulation, and/or defense.¹ To many, this doctrine, perhaps as much or more than any other, seems so abstract and unrelated to life that they might wonder just why the interest. What is here that would warrant and elicit such concentrated attention? What is at stake in this doctrine that would provoke such interest and concern?

To many, what is at stake is simply this: the integrity and reality of the Christian faith itself. Donald Bloesch surprised many in the theological world with the publication in 1985 of his book entitled, The Battle for the Trinity.² He charged the feminist rejection of the Bible's own and traditional theology's predominantly masculine language for God as a rejection of the Trinity itself and, as such, the imposition of a different faith (i.e., not the Christian faith) onto those quarters of the church inclined to accept the feminist critique. And, such charges and concerns have continued unabated. Consider, for example, the sobering words of Duke University Professor of Systematic Theology, Geoffrey Wainwright:

The signs of our times are that, as in the fourth century, the doctrine of the Trinity occupies a pivotal position. While usually still considering themselves within the church, and in any case wanting to be loyal to their perception of truth, various thinkers and activists are seeking such revisions of the inherited doctrine of the Trinity that their success might in fact mean its abandonment, or at least such an alteration of its content, status, and function that the whole face of Christianity would be drastically changed. Once more the understanding, and perhaps the attainment, of salvation is at stake, or certainly the message of the church and the church's visible composition.³