Student organization asserting complementarian vision within ‘milieu of rampant egalitarianism’ at Wheaton College

A group of students founded College Complementarians four years ago to provide the student body with an alternative vision of the gender debate on the campus of an overwhelmingly egalitarian school.

For John Higgins, the gender debate is no laughing matter.

However, when Higgins tells fellow Wheaton College students that he is the president of a student group known as "College Complementarians," his words are typically met with snickers.

"The common response from peers when I share with them my involvement in the group is light laughter," Higgins said. "I find this profoundly telling."

And so it is.

A group of students founded College Complementarians four years ago to provide the student body with an alternative vision of the gender debate on the campus of an overwhelmingly egalitarian school.

The vast majority of Wheaton’s faculty members hold to the egalitarian position. Last spring, the school’s theology conference dealt with gender issues and took a decidedly egalitarian slant with few strong complementarian papers offered among the presentations.

"College Complementarians was formed to offer the students of Wheaton College a vision of complementarianism in the milieu of rampant egalitarianism," Higgins said. "The complementarian viewpoint is not received very well here."

The organization is doing its best to level the playing field by inviting speakers that urge students to view gender roles through the lens of Scripture and not by the dictates of a postmodern culture.

The group is also starting a bi-semester publication called Complementarian Quarterly which will address gender issues from a biblical perspective. Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) leaders such as Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware have addressed gender issues at Wheaton thanks to the student group. College Complementarians has also attempted to organize a debate with an egalitarian group on campus.

Higgins, a biblical and theological studies and philosophy major, says where one comes down on the issue of gender roles has deep-reaching effects on the remainder of his theology, his view of Scripture and his hermeneutic. .

"Where a person comes down on this issue will affect their Christology, ecclesiology, Theology proper, and the character and nature of the marital union," Higgins said.

"When the egalitarian material is scanned, the reader comes away baffled asking, `Does the Bible have nothing significant to say about the most foundational relationship of all of civilization other than the ultimate equality of the persons involved?’ [The question is] are we going to follow the clear teachings of Scripture or not? This is the issue and this is why the gender debate is so important."