Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender Debate

by Michelle Lee-Barnewall

To ask that question means that they have not fully understood the ramifications and nature of God’s grace. We can learn from Paul’s answer in contrast to what could have happened if he had simply replied yes or no as we consider gender. As evangelical Christians, we often want to know what we can or cannot do, or what we should or should not do. As the gender debate has concentrated on specific activities, it runs the same risk of creating a theology defined by an external pattern of prohibitions and allowances. Various biblical and theological arguments are brought to bear to support a theology that concentrates on form and praxis, and in particular, as related to individuals. As a result, the discussion is dominated by practical questions such as “Can women be elders?” “Can women teach men?” and “Do men make the final decision in marriage?” I understand the need to address the practical questions, but I also ask whether there is room to suspend them for a moment to reexamine Scripture without these predetermined goals. To use a modern analogy, we can easily see the problems of a theology of spiritual formation grounded on a question such as “Can Christians drink/smoke/gamble and so on?” These questions are formed by our desire to know precisely how to live, but if we present them as our starting point, we take a shortcut that causes us to miss the larger picture and perhaps do more harm in the long run. Not many people would say that Christian spirituality is defined si...