book recommendations

I'd like to start a Bookshelf section for the margin of this blog. What books have you found helpful as you have read about complementarianism and egalitarianism?

(UPDATE: Thanks for the suggestions so far--keep 'em comin'. I have added them, as well as others I am familiar with, to the Bookshelf in the margin. If you like freebies, the books promoted by CBMW can be downloaded for free. Click on our Bookshelf book links to find the free ones or click here to see the CBMW list. For some books on the CBMW list, you have to click on the name of a book to get to a page from which you can download it for free.)

What Every Pastor Needs to Know about the Evangelical Gender Debate

Randy Stinson, President of CBMW, has just spoken on the topic "What Every Pastor Needs to Know about the Evangelical Gender Battle," at a church conference. According to the CBMW Gender Blog post

Stinson said, "What is at stake in the Gender Battle is much more than who can preach on a Sunday morning. This issue has spread its tentacles throughout many aspects of the Church." He went on to describe how errors in our biblical understanding of gender threaten the health of the home and the local church. Even how we address God in worship and our ability to accurately represent the Gospel are affected by our understanding of biblical manhood and womanhood.

Comments are not enabled on the Gender Blog, but you are welcome to post your comments to what Stinson said here.

A Tale of Two Attitudes

I have written what I hope is a kind of primer on difficulties that face open dialog on the issue of comp/egal at This Link. Please let me know what you think.

Gender Role Debate: Egalitarian or Complementarian?

J. Lee Jagers blogged last year on the Gender Role Debate: Egalitarian or Complementarian? He wrote:

One of my goals in this blog is to clarify the arguments on both sides of this controversial issue and to invite thoughtful dialogue from both sides. It helps me orient my own view in the context of the wider spectrum of thought and the interaction helps all of us grow in our personal convictions. I also enjoy seeing what I can learn about people in general by the nature of their responses (What do people seek? What do they react to? What emotions drive their reactions?)

I share his goals and I hope that our new Complegalitarian blog can contribute to meeting those goals.

Hello!

First, thank you to the creators of Complex lego librarian Complegalitarian for inviting me to contribute. As an old saying goes, "Yesterday I couldn't spell it but today I is one!"

I grew up in a Christian home, but it was also a time when females still weren't allowed to do a lot of things. We couldn't play many sports, had to take Home Ec instead of Shop, and were generally not given equal privileges to males. Even today, women still lag behind in equal pay for equal work and are held back in many spheres of politics and business. But above all, women were-- and still are-- simply not allowed to have any "authority" over men in the church. For this and many other reasons I began a long quest of self-study in the Bible. Too many Christians were content with ignorance of all but the most basic teachings, so I started scouring every bit of material I could find on what the Bible taught.

Gradually I learned to distinguish good exegesis from bad, good logic from poor logic, and the paramount importance of context. This journey spanned many topics, including prophecy, cults, science, and everyday living. No matter what the topic at hand, I learned that nothing in the Bible was written in a vacuum, so no subject should ever be considered an isolated teaching. This is the crucial consideration when attempting to understand the Bible, and the failure to remember it is the root of many false teachings.

So for me, the issue of women in the assembly and the Christian home is important for two main reasons: it is one of many issues that is fraught with misunderstanding and prejudice, and it hamstrings half the body of Christ. We Christians seem to have gotten over the idea of the superior race and the superior class, but not the superior gender. And this is part of the larger problem of the very concept of hierarchy that makes its own class distinction between "clergy" and "laity".

We have been silent for too long while hierarchy and all its ramifications wreaks havoc on the health of the body of Christ. I believe God is moving in these last days to wake up the sleeping and confront those who "beat their fellow servants".

Confessions of a Recovering Feminist

A few days ago the Gender Blog posted the Confessions of a Recovering Feminist, Courtney Tarter. Courtney ends:

From the time the first feminist (Eve) came on the scene, until now, we have been in a cosmic battle against the flesh and Satan because he hates the image of Christ and His Church. We await the final consummation of the good work that was started by King Jesus on Calvary. With the curse came the promise. Feminism was, and will finally be, defeated when the Seed crushes the Serpent (Gen. 3:15). And that’s good news for recovering feminists like you and me.

Kruse on "head"

Michael Kruse has been blogging on the meaning of kephale. He has another post up on the topic today. The discussion is critical to whether or not God intends husbands to have a position of heirarchical authority over their wives.