A History of Complementarianism

I. Why “Complementarianism” Needed a Name^[1]

On a December morning in 1988 at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, held that year at Wheaton College, in Wheaton, Illinois, a group of men and women who had been meeting in secret and on an invitation-only basis for two years, went public. They announced the formation of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) to the conference, handed out brochures to attendees, and held a press conference, although, as it happened, Christianity Today was the only media outlet that turned up.^[2]

Wayne Grudem, one of the key members of the group, recalls that earlier that same day in 1988, at a breakfast meeting of the CBMW in the main dining room of the Hilton hotel,^[3] they coined the term ‘complementarian’ as a one-word representation of their viewpoint. Those at the breakfast included John Piper, Wayne Grudem, Bruce Waltke, Wayne House, and Kent Hughes.

The new term was shorthand for the biblical vision of the sexes that a wider group of men and women had been working to articulate since 1986 (more on that year below). That vision had been finalized a year earlier in a meeting on December 2–3, 1987, at the Sheraton Hotel in the city of Danvers, Massachusetts, where the ETS conference was being held. They called this statement, “The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” (after the city in which they were meeting).^[4]

Almost forty years on, the Danvers Statement has stood the test of time as a summary of the complementarian position. It opens with ten points of rationale, lists five purposes it hopes will be pursued, and ends with ten affirmations on the equality and distinctions of men and women before God.^[5]

From its inception then, as Denny Burk, current  President of CBMW, explains, “Complementarianism was not first and foremost a sociological descriptor or movement. Nor was it describing an ethos or a set of extrabiblical stereotypes. The term emerged as a shorthand to describe the theological vision of the Danvers Statement.”^[6]

“Complementarianism” was a name for the theological vision. But why was any of this necessary? And what did they hope to achieve?

The following history of complementarianism falls into two halves. In the first half is the why of “complementarianism”— why the term was needed. This section goes at lightning speed from the Enlightenment to second wave feminism and into the 1970s and 80s, when the opposing visions of complementarianism and egalitarianism took shape. The second half treats “Lived Complementarianism,” with some of the developments and debates that have marked the history since then.

Historical Context

Second Wave Feminism and Social change

The vision of complementarianism needed a summary statement because of what was happening in the wider society. In fact, both sides of the complementarian/egalitarian debate in the church point to secular feminism and the huge social changes it brought as the backdrop to the contemporary gender debate in the church.

Second-wave feminism began in the 1960s and continued through to the 1990s. The foundations of the modern feminist movement, however, can be traced (at least) back to the Enlightenment: the late-seventeenth and eighteenth century intellectual movement marked by a rejection of authority; a belief in human progress; the elevation of human reason over faith or tradition; and a vision of humanity as autonomous beings, free to choose to be and do as we want (unencumbered by God, church, or state). We might sum this up as skepticism, individualism, and reason.

All modern forms of feminism (notwithstanding their significant differences) have their foundations in the Enlightenment. Another related root is the belief that if there are no divinely ordained or revealed differences between the sexes, and if God is not the creator, ruler, and judge of all, then why should one sex be denied the self-appointed “freedoms” and “rights” of the other?

Space does not permit us to look at how this played out for good or for ill in the intervening centuries — instead we will fast-forward to the mid-twentieth century and second wave feminism.

Second-wave feminism grew out of the post-WWII period, which saw men returning from the war and needing jobs. This return pushed women out of the full-time workforce. The post-war period was also a time of prosperity, a rising middle class, consumerism, higher rates of marriage, the invention and widespread use of time-saving household appliances, and a rejection of communism, and all communism meant for the family.

In the U.S. in particular, this social change led to a culture of domesticity, with women marrying younger and having more children than they had even in the 1920s before the Depression, hence the term “Baby Boomers.” This era was typified in shows like Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver.^[7] Here is the picture of that moment in time: white picket fences, apron-clad mom baking apple pie, dad walking in from work to a cooked dinner, with the kitchen being the centre of the home! It was a sex-segregated vision, of men going off to work in the real world and women staying home with the children.

Against this backdrop in 1963, Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, landed in bookstores, claiming that each “suburban wife” struggled alone with a strange stirring and dissatisfaction. And that

as she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night, she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question: ‘Is this all?’^[8]

In Friedan’s words, it was “the problem that has no name”, and her solution to this “problem with no name” was for women to join the paid workforce in jobs where they would find meaning and satisfaction.

At the same time in the 1960s, women’s rights were being addressed at the political level. In the U.S., President Kennedy appointed a Commission on the Status of Women, which in 1963 led to a Presidential order for the civil service to employ people based only on their ability, and not their sex.^[9] This was joined by the Equal Pay Act (1963) and Civil Rights Act (1964), which addressed discrimination on the basis of sex.

By the 1970s, the liberal feminism of Friedan and others, which advocated for social, legal, and political equality for the sexes, had given way to radical feminism, and the problem now had a name. It was patriarchy.

Women, it was claimed, were an oppressed class within society, a “sex class.” All women were oppressed, and all men were (potentially) their oppressors or exploiters. Moreover, all men individually benefitted from the patriarchal/anti-women/ misogynistic nature of society, which itself was irredeemably patriarchal and male-dominated. Even the language systems reflected this patriarchalism: e.g., the generic use of the word “man”; women’s personal titles being based on their marital status (Mrs v. Ms); wives taking their husband’s last name; and even English words like chairman, history, human, and woman.

Patriarchy was everywhere and unavoidable, and it operated at a societal/structural level and individual level.

Women’s welfare could only be achieved, it was argued, by recognising the essential differences between women and men, through woman-centred studies and perspectives, and the creation of a women’s culture based on women’s bodies and life experiences.^[10]

These differences were a source of pride and confidence, not something to be ashamed of or obliterated or suppressed. Think Helen Reddy’s chart-topping 1972 anthem, “I am woman, hear me roar, I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman.”^[11]

Whereas first wave feminism in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century had advocated for equality between the sexes where the goals were absolute (you can either vote or own property or attend university or not), radical feminism sought a thorough rebuilding of culture, with a new feminised value system based on women’s characteristics.^[12]

Here’s how leading, second-wave feminist Kate Millett described the power, problem, and pervasiveness of patriarchy and its relation to the family and the state in her 1970 book, Sexual Politics:

Patriarchy’s chief institution is the family. It is both a mirror of and a connection with the larger society; a patriarchal unit within a patriarchal whole. . . . As the fundamental instrument and the foundation unit of patriarchal society the family and its roles are prototypical. Serving as an agent of the larger society, the family . . . acts as a unit in the government of the patriarchal state which rules its citizens through its family heads.^[13]

On religion and patriarchy, Millett wrote:

Patriarchal religion could consolidate this position [i.e., of downgrading the role of women in procreation and ascribing all the power of life to men] by the creation of a male God or gods, demoting, discrediting, or eliminating goddesses and constructing a theology whose basic postulates are male supremacist, and one of whose central functions is to uphold and validate the patriarchal structure.^[14]

Or more succinctly: “Patriarchy has God on its side.”^[15]

Feminism in the church

These debates, their effects, and these cultural changes were not confined to the world outside the church. Things were happening there, too.

Women’s Ordination

The most visible of these debates was women’s ordination. Between the two World Wars, a handful of churches had moved to ordain women to identical ministries as men. But after the second World War, with the factors above affecting Western societies, women were admitted to full, ordained ministry in the Lutheran Church in Denmark in 1948, Sweden in 1960, Norway in 1961, and the Church of Scotland in 1969.

By the end of the 1960s, most mainstream denominations in the U.S. had begun ordaining women to full clerical positions, with the exceptions of the Episcopal (Anglican) and Roman Catholic churches. The Anglican Church of Canada ordained women to the priesthood in 1977, and the Episcopal Church followed a year later.^[16]

That same year, in 1978, at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) — the conference mentioned above — there was a major debate on the topic of women’s ordination. The debate involved a woman, Margaret Howe, who published a book on the matter in 1982, speaking in favour; and a man, Robert Saucy, speaking against.^[17]

Formation of Egalitarian Organisations and Publications

In the 70s, there was the formation of organisations and publications set up to challenge the historic understanding of the Scriptures about men and women and to change church practice. In the U.S. in 1974, a newly formed organization called Evangelicals for Social Action set up a working group that became the Evangelical Women’s Caucus (EWC). The Evangelical Women’s Caucus campaigned for women’s ordination, inclusive language in Bible translations and Christian publishing, and opposed what they saw as discriminatory hiring policies in Christian organisations.^[18]

EWC’s first conference was in 1975 entitled, “Women in Transition: A Biblical Approach to Feminism.” Over the next decade, they spread their message and influence through annual conferences and through chapters scattered across the U.S. They also published a journal called Daughters of Sarah, which was dedicated to “biblical feminism.” The EWC explained their mission this way:

We are Christians; we are also feminists. Some say we cannot be both, but Christianity and feminism for us are inseparable.^[19]

But just over a decade later, in 1986, the EWC split over the issue of lesbianism and homosexual rights. The majority claimed homosexuality was compatible with biblical Christianity and remained in the Evangelical Women’s Caucus. But those who claimed it was not compatible, who formed a large minority, resigned and set up a new group called Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE), which we will come to shortly. The split over lesbianism and homosexual rights was such big news that it was reported in the Los Angeles Times.^[20]

By 1990, the EWC had changed its name to become the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC), which gives some sense of its theological drift. It is now openly committed to inclusive, liberal feminist theology.

The question at the heart of these developments was the authority and place of the Bible in feminist theological thought and life. Below is a snapshot of how radical feminists were answering these questions in this period.

One of the leading figures was Mary Daly, whose many books tracked her journey away from the Catholic faith of her childhood. They include The Church and the Second Sex: Towards a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation in 1968, and Beyond God the Father in 1973.

In a 1971 article entitled, “After the Death of God the Father,” she wrote:

The Judaic-Christian tradition has served to legitimate sexually imbalanced patriarchal society. Thus, for example, the image of the Father God, spawned in the human imagination and sustained as plausible by patriarchy, has in turn rendered service to this type of society by making its mechanisms for the oppression of women appear right and fitting. If God in “his” heaven is a father ruling “his” people, then it is in the “nature” of things and according to divine plan and the order of the universe that society be male-dominated.^[21]

She joked that if the Bible was de-patriarchalized, “perhaps there would be enough salvageable material to comprise an interesting pamphlet.”^[22]

The quote below is one for which Daly is perhaps most famous:

If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on in the human imagination.^[23]

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, a similarly influential feminist, wrote:

The Christian marginality of women has its roots in the patriarchal beginnings of the church and in the androcentrism of Christian revelation.^[24]

Virginia Mollencott, who a decade earlier had been a consultant for the New International Version Bible translation committee, wrote the following:

I am beginning to wonder whether indeed Christianity is patriarchal to its very core. If so, count me out. Some of us may be forced to leave Christianity in order to participate in Jesus’ discipleship of equals.^[25]

And Rosemary Radford Ruether addressed the future of feminist theology in 1985:

The patriarchal distortion of all tradition, including Scripture, throws feminist theology back upon the primary intuitions of religious experience itself.^[26]

As you can see, this is a movement away from Scripture as the authoritative infallible word of God to a focus on women’s experience, driven by the belief that the Bible and its historic translations were written by men for men, and therefore that Christianity and the church are bad for women and responsible for great injustices against them and other minorities.

All these developments in the sixties, seventies, and early eighties help form the backdrop for the events I began with in the formation in 1988 of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the Danvers Statement, and the coining of the term “Complementarianism.” None of which happened in a vacuum. They were responses to challenges and changes in society and in the life of the church.

Three developments leading to “Complementarianism”

Before we look at those events more closely, we need to zoom in a little and look at what was happening in the eighties immediately before the Danvers Statement was written and the word “complementarian” was coined. Three developments are worth noting.

The first was in the publishing of books from both sides of the debate. There are too many to mention, but on the egalitarian side, leading figures Paul Jewett and Patricia Gundry both published influential books in 1980: Jewett on women’s ordination and Gundry on egalitarian marriage. On the complementarian side that same year, Susan Foh responded to the rising threat of what was then called “biblical feminism” with her book, Women and the Word of God and Stephen Clark published Man and Woman in Christ. A year later (1981), James Hurley published Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective.

The second development was an evangelical colloquium on Women and the Bible held over three days in October 1984 in Oak Brook, Illinois. Twenty-six evangelical leaders attended the invitation-only event, convened by Catherine Clark Kroeger, David Scholer, and Stanley Gundry (all egalitarians). The papers presented at the colloquium were published in 1986 in the book, Women, Authority and the Bible. As far as I can tell, almost all of those present were “biblical feminists” — as they were called then.

One of the few who upheld creational distinctions between women and men, J. I. Packer, drew attention in his paper to a feature of the debate, particularly in those days, which was that the debate about women’s ministry had two battle fronts, as it were. One front concerned the exegetical arguments, while the other focused on the pain women felt from having their ministry restricted and their mistreatment at the hands of men and church leadership.^[27]

The third development was the ETS annual meeting in 1986, which that year met in Atlanta, Georgia. The entire conference was on the theme “Male and Female in Biblical and Theological Perspective.” It drew a record number of approximately 350 members.

At the 1986 ETS annual meeting there were six plenary presentations: five by biblical feminists Catherine Kroeger, Gilbert Bilizekian, Walter Liefeld, David Scholer, and Aída Spencer, and one by a “complementarian” (to use the later term), Wayne Grudem.^[28] In his words, he was “the token complementarian.”^[29]

The titles of the presentations were: “The Classical Concept of ‘Head’ and ‘Source’”; “The Nature of Christian Ministry and the Ministry of Women”; “Feminist Hermeneutics and Evangelical Biblical Interpretation”; “Women in Authoritative Positions”; and Grudem’s paper, “Paul’s Consistent Advocacy of Women’s Participation without Governing Authority,” which you’ll note both affirms the ministry of women and recognises biblical limits of that ministry.^[30]

Even so, the five-to-one imbalance on the platform did not reflect the majority view held by the membership of ETS. Troubled by this, Grudem and others “met secretly one evening” during the conference and decided to do something, because they feared that biblical feminists were “taking over the ETS in a way that was contrary to the convictions of the vast majority” of its members.^[31]

Formation of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW)

To that end, Grudem made a public announcement at the end of that 1986 ETS meeting that a new organisation was going to be set up dedicated to upholding both the equality and differences between men and women in marriage and the church, and if people were interested to get in touch with him or Wayne House.^[32]

So it was, in 1987, after having met during the year in Dallas to work out a statement of belief, and being ‘‘encouraged that God was guiding their work,” that a group of men and women met secretly ahead of the ETS meeting in Danvers and accepted what became known as the Danvers Statement, voting to incorporate as the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Then a year later in 1988, the final form of the Danvers Statement was first published in November, and in December at the ETS meeting in Wheaton, CBMW went public, together with the newly minted term “complementarian.”^[33]

A double-page ad in Christianity Today, January 1989, announced the formation of CBMW to the wider evangelical community. It listed thirty council members (four of whom were women), a board of reference, and the Danvers Statement. The Q&A about the Council included the following questions:

Why did you form such a council? Because there is much confusion about male and female roles in the Christian world today. We wanted to do something to help clear it up.

What do you stand for? We hold that God made men and women to be equal in personhood and in value, but different in roles.

What do you mean by “different in roles”? We are convinced that Scripture affirms male leadership in the home, and that in the church certain governing and teaching roles are restricted to men. On the other hand, Scripture strongly encourages women’s full participation in a vast array of needed ministries, and supports active, informed participation by women in decision-making in the family and the church.

But don’t all Christians agree with these views? Not at all: The idea of God-given distinctions between men’s and women’s roles in marriage and the church is under strong attack today in many books, articles, and speeches by people prominent in the evangelical world. And on the other side of this question, many families and churches have wrongly stifled women’s ministries and have wrongly neglected informed participation by women in the decision-making processes of the home and the church.

They also indicated their intention to “pray that the Lord would bring evangelicals to consensus on these issues rather than allowing controversies and divisions.”

In 1991 Crossway published Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (RBMW), the “big blue book” edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem, containing twenty-six essays by men and women. And in 1992, readers of Christianity Today voted it the “Book of the Year.”

Formation of Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE)

Concurrent to these developments with CBMW, those arguing for the removal of distinctions between the sexes were also galvanising and setting up structures to advance their view. They also mark the 1986 ETS meeting in Atlanta as a milestone in their movement, seeing it as a significant win that the society would allow open debate on the topic,^[34] and, do not forget, the plenary speakers were stacked 5-1 against the complementarian view!

The next year in 1987, a group of egalitarians started a new journal called Priscilla Papers, and then on January 2, 1988, Christians for Biblical Equality was formally established. Its founders were three women, Catherine Kroeger, Gretchen Hull and Alvera Mickelsen.^[35] Their first president was Catherine Kroeger, who had left the Evangelical Women’s Caucus in 1986 when the split occurred over the acceptance of lesbianism and advocacy of homosexual rights.^[36]

In 1989, CBE produced their statement of belief (their equivalent of Danvers) called “Men, Women, and Biblical Equality,” and that same year in July they held their first international conference in Saint Paul, Minnesota. And in 2004/2005 the first two editions of Discovering Biblical Equality (DBE), the “orange book,” were published, also coming in at over 500 pages with twenty-nine essays.^[37]

Common ground between complementarians and evangelical egalitarians

Space does not permit us to work through the two statements, Danvers and Men, Women, and Biblical Equality — or the big blue and orange books — to compare and contrast them. But a few things are worth noting:

First, both statements and both sides of the debate are expressly committed to and concerned for the welfare of women and children and oppose all forms of domestic abuse.^[38]

In fact, the 1988 Danvers Statement lists “the upsurge [in] physical and emotional abuse in the family” as the sixth of its ten points of rationale, and in 1994, at CBE’s request, three members of the CBMW council (Wayne Grudem, Mary Kassian, and Ray Ortland) met with three members of CBE to see if they could find points of agreement, and in the end they found the one issue they were united over was that “abuse within marriage is wrong.” Afterwards, Mary Kassian drafted a statement with feedback from the three CBE members so they could make a joint announcement. But, when the statement came before the CBE board, they rejected it because they thought a joint statement would confuse their constituency. Consequently, CBMW ended up publishing the statement on their own.^[39]

Secondly, both statements, as well as each organization’s respective books, agree that the church hasn’t always treated women and the ministry of women as it should have done and agree that that needs to change.^[40]

Third, importantly, in the 1991 edition of RBMW, Piper and Grudem pointed out that while the debate was not a minor, in-house squabble, but has important implications for all of life and mission, they still “sense a kinship far closer with the founders of CBE than with those who seem to put their feminist commitments above Scripture.”^[41]

That is an important reminder. But we should also note that sometimes it is difficult to see the differences between the two sides because we use the same language to say different things. Allow an example. All editions of the orange book make the following statement in the Introduction:

Egalitarianism recognizes patterns of authority in the family, church, and society—it is not anarchistic….women and men are made equally in God’s image and likeness (Gen 1:27), are equally fallen (Rom 3:23), equally redeemable through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection (Jn 3:16), equally participants in the new-covenant community (Gal 3:28), equally heirs of God in Christ (1 Pet 3:7), and equally able to be filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit for life and ministry (Acts 2:17).^[42]

One could substitute “complementarianism” for “egalitarianism” and it would still be true. There is nothing especially egalitarian about it. But I left out parts of two sentences in the original statement. Now see the difference with the missing words filled in:

Egalitarianism recognizes patterns of authority in the family, church, and society—it is not anarchistic—but rejects the notion that any office, ministry, or opportunity should be denied anyone on the grounds of being male or female. This is because women and men are made equally in God’s image and likeness (Gen 1:27), are equally fallen (Rom 3:23), equally redeemable through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection (Jn 3:16), equally participants in the new-covenant community (Gal 3:28), equally heirs of God in Christ (1 Pet 3:7), and equally able to be filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit for life and ministry (Acts 2:17).

The above quotes highlight two things: 1) How much genuine shared Christian belief there is between evangelical egalitarians and complementarians on matters of salvation; we are brothers and sisters in Christ; but also, 2) If egalitarians think this statement defines what they believe and what complementarians don’t believe, then, it seems to me, we are understanding the word “equally” in very different ways. Otherwise, the causal clause, “For this reason,” just does not follow.

For egalitarians, the equality of women and men in creation and redemption means that any differences in role are removed; equality means sameness or interchangeability. Whereas for complementarians, to use the words of Danvers:

1. Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God as persons and distinct in their manhood and womanhood
2. Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order.^[43]

Or as the Preface of the big blue book puts it, complementarianism teaches “equality with beneficial differences.”^[44]

II: Lived Complementarianism

The label “complementarian”

As I indicated above, it took a while for both sides of this debate to find the best term for their position. Egalitarians were originally biblical or Christian or evangelical feminists. And those who recognise the biblical distinctives between men and women eventually landed on the label, “complementarian.”

Piper and Grudem explain why they landed on this term in the blue book, saying their preferred term is “complementarian,” because “it suggests both equality and beneficial differences between men and women.” They don’t like “traditionalist” because they want to allow Scripture to challenge traditional patterns of behaviour, which have often been marred by “selfishness, irresponsibility, passivity and abuse,” and they strongly reject “hierarchicalist” because it puts all the emphasis on structured authority and expresses none of the equality and beauty of mutual interdependence that’s depicted in Scripture.^[45]

Back in 1984, J. I. Packer had expressed similar misgivings about the terms “hierarchy and patriarchy.”^[46]

Since the adoption of “complementarian” in 1988, debate about the best term for the theological vision it represents has continued on and off. In 2003, Old Testament scholar, Daniel Block suggested the term “patricentrism,” and in 2005 Russell Moore suggested “biblical patriarchy,”^[47] which is gaining traction in some circles today (e.g., Doug Wilson).^[48]

But as we have seen, the term “patriarchy” in our current social context carries very negative connotations — whether it’s the old diffuse systemic “patriarchy” of second-wave feminism or the new notion of “the patriarchy” as a monolithic stand-alone entity that can be “smashed”^[49] — “patriarchy” connotes a system created by men for men that harms women. And it only speaks to one half of the man-woman relationship and does that solely from the perspective of top-down authority. It’s about structure (or in popular discourse, domination) and not equality, mutuality, and difference.

As Denny Burk explains, those who chose the word “complementarian” back in 1988,

… settled on this word because there simply wasn’t another one that adequately described their view. The term has a profound exegetical and linguistic root in the Hebrew of Genesis 2:18 (kenegdo), which the lexicons define as “corresponding to.”^[50]

Some detractors have pointed to the neologism — the new word, “complementarian” — and claimed that the concept itself is a novel idea and a man-made doctrine,^[51] to which Burk has responded:

… the claim that complementarianism is a man-made doctrinal innovation is a myth. The word “complementarianism” is indeed a relatively new term. But it is a new term coined to refer to an ancient teaching that is rooted in the text of Scripture. On the contrary, egalitarianism is the doctrinal innovation, not the biblical idea that men and women are created equally in God’s image with distinct and complementary differences. Indeed, some version of what we now call “complementarianism” is what the church has assumed for its entire 2,000-year history. Recent attempts to flip this script amount to unserious historical revisionism.^[52]

Equal but Different

To this point, we have been focusing on the U.S., but of course things were also happening here in Australia. The debate in the church was focused on the issue of women’s ordination and identical ministries for women as men. Denominations and churches were divided over the issue.

At the forefront of this push in the church and secular media was the Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW), which was formed in Sydney in 1983.^[53] The organization took its name and mission from a U.K. group by the same name that had started in 1979. MOW set up branches in major cities around Australia.^[54] Its founding president was Dr. Patricia Brennan.

It was in this context that the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia voted to accept women to the diaconate in 1985, with the first women ordained as deacon in Sydney in March 1989.^[55]

But the push for women to have identical ministries with men continued. Matters came to a head in 1992 when the General Synod, which met in Sydney in July and November, voted to ordain women priests. This occurred only after two bishops had tried to take matters into their own hands, generating publicity and creating division.^[56]

In the midst of these events and prior to the November General Synod later that year, a group of Sydney women led by Patricia Judge formed the group Equal but Different (EBD), which still exists today. Along with Patricia, its founding members were Marion Gabbott, Lesley Hicks, Helen Jensen, Pru Selden, Di Selden (later, Warren) and Christine Jensen.^[57]

At the time, MOW was very active in the media and effective at claiming they spoke for the silent majority of Anglicans and at characterising opposition to women’s ordination as misogynistic and a power play by men. It was a case easily made when the only voices in the media opposing women’s ordination were male clergy!

The rationale for EBD was that women’s voices were needed to defend the biblical vision of male leadership in the church and present a positive model of biblical women’s ministry and oppose women’s ordination. They also organised petitions signed by women for General Synod and Sydney Synod, which showed women’s opposition to women’s ordination. The petition to General Synod in 1992 had over 1,800 signatories from twenty-two of the twenty-three Australian dioceses.

We should also mention, of course, the Priscilla and Aquila Centre, which was established by Moore College in 2011, under the direction of Jane Tooher.^[58] The centre was set up to encourage the ministries of women in partnership with men.^[59]

Gender-inclusive Bible translation

The critique of language is an essential part of the feminist agenda. As mentioned above, gender-inclusive language in Bible translation and Christian literature was one of the first commitments of the Women’s Caucus. Today, some radical feminists reject even the word “God” as irretrievably patriarchal. Instead, they prefer “G*d” or “God/dess” or Sophia or use both male and female names, pronouns, and images for God, or gender-neutral terms like Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer (instead of Father, Son, and Spirit).

The debate about gender-neutral or gender-inclusive Bible translation in the evangelical world erupted in March 1997 with an article by Susan Olasky in World, a U.S. conservative weekly news magazine. The front cover had a picture of an NIV Bible — with a red female symbol on the spine — and the Bible morphing into a stealth bomber. The headline read: “The Stealth Bible: The Popular New International Version Bible is Quietly Going ‘Gender-Neutral.’” Olasky’s article was titled, “The Feminist Seduction of the Evangelical Church: Femme Fatale.”^[60]

Two weeks later, the magazine published two further articles, one that reported that  Zondervan, the U.S. publisher of the NIV, had issued a statement saying they did not intend “to advance a particular social agenda or stray from the original biblical texts,” rejecting the descriptors “inclusive” and “unisex,” saying the new version would be “gender-accurate.”

The second article was written by Wayne Grudem, who set out his objections by comparing several texts in the NIV 1984 and the NIVI, an “inclusive language” NIV that had been published in 1996 in the U.K. by another publisher, which couldn’t be sold legally in the U.S.^[61]

Things escalated, with articles and public statements and caucusing, culminating in a May 1997 meeting in Colorado Springs between the International Bible Society, which owned the rights to the NIV, Zondervan its publisher, members of the Committee for Bible Translation, and representatives of those opposed to gender inclusive translation.^[62] The joint statement from the meeting was a win for those opposed. But things didn’t end there.

For their part, Christians for Biblical Equality urged the Bible Society to resume “aggressive efforts to update the North American edition of the NIV with gender-accurate language.”^[63]

Complementarians, however, were divided. While the 1997 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention and Presbyterian Church in America passed resolutions opposing gender-inclusive translations, several members of the CBMW Board of Reference, including Don Carson, resigned over the issue.^[64]

Both sides published books, with Carson’s book, The Inclusive-Language Debate, released in 1998 and with Grudem and Vern Poythress’s book, The Gender Neutral Bible Controversy: Muting the Masculinity of God’s Words, appearing the following year. They published second edition of this work in 2004, The TNIV and the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy, after Zondervan published a gender-neutral translation called Today’s New Testament Version (TNIV), which, likely due to the opposition it encountered, never really took off and has since been discontinued.

The current NIV came out in 2011 and is a revised edition of that discontinued version.^[65] Its translation committee included both complementarians and egalitarians.^[66] And while some of the features that troubled opponents of the TNIV were changed, others remained.^[67]

As the story of the NIV unfolded, two new Bible versions were being produced that didn’t adopt a gender-neutral approach.

The Holman Christian Standard Bible, now the Christian Standard Bible, first came out in 1999.^[68] Its website says it “retains a traditional approach to translating gender language into English.” For example, masculine terms (Father, Son, King) and male pronouns are retained when they refer to God; and the expression “son of man” is retained where it may have messianic implications. But it also accommodates changes to language: where the Greek term adelphoi (brothers) clearly refers to all believers, it uses “brothers and sisters” and it doesn’t use “man” or “he” when Scripture presents principles or generic examples that aren’t limited to males.^[69]

Similarly, the English Standard Version was first published in 2001, after starting its life in 1997 when Crossway bought the rights to the Revised Standard Version.^[70] Its website states that “in the area of gender language, the goal of the ESV is to render literally what is in the original.”^[71]

All this to say that all Bible translators and publishers (especially in the West) must now work out how they’ll approach gender in the translation process and publicly state their gender translation philosophy, and we as readers must be discerning.

The reach and reason for the biblical differences

At this point, I want to move on to some areas where the history is still being written; to debates among those who call themselves “complementarian.”

The reach of the biblical differences

The first category are debates about the reach of complementarianism. How far can you stretch the notion of complementarianism before you stop being complementarian or how soft are the boundaries? These are questions of application.

The most obvious one is the issue of women teaching mixed congregations. This view has been advocated, for example, by Kathy Keller, speaking from her American Presbyterian context. She argued in her 2012 book, Jesus, Justice and Gender Roles: A Case of Gender Roles in Ministry, that “anything that an unordained man is allowed to do, a woman is also allowed to do.”^[72]

Or take John Dickson’s view in several editions of his book, Hearing Her Voice,^[73] first published in 2012, saying that the Greek word Paul used for “teach” in 1 Timothy 2:12 actually means “laying down and preserving” or “transmitting intact” the apostolic deposit. He argued that since this is not what happens in most modern sermons, women can preach today. Matthias Media responded to this argument with a book in 2014 called Women, Sermons and the Bible,^[74] edited by Peter Bolt and Tony Payne, with essays by Peter Tong, Dani Treweek, Peter Bolt, Tony Payne, Lionel Windsor, Mark Thompson, and me.

All these discussions address the reach of the biblical gender roles.

The reason for the biblical differences

The next category of debates addresses the reason for the biblical differences between the sexes. Why is it that God’s word assigns different roles and responsibilities to women and men?

Under this heading, I would put the debate about the Trinity that erupted in 2016. In early June that year Liam Goligher, who was a Presbyterian minister at the time, posted two articles at the beginning of what became the “2016 Trinity Controversy.” The first was titled, “Is it okay to teach a complementarianism based on Eternal Subordination?”; and the second, “Reinventing God.” Others, such as Carl Trueman, soon joined the discussion.

The two main figures of the debate were Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware. Both of whom, to varying degrees, subsequently modified their views in light of criticism. As Mark Thompson pointed out in his June 9, 2016 blog, the debate had arisen “it must be admitted, because of overstatement and lack of precision in some of its advocates.”^[75]

The ensuing discussion spread far beyond the narrow issue of complementarianism, with one aspect of the debate dealing with how Paul intended the analogy in 1 Corinthians 11:3 to operate in terms of the relationship between men and women and that between the persons of the Trinity, especially in respect of their eternal relations.

In terms of the relevance of the debate for the history of complementarianism, Stephen Wellum last year pointed out that

… an ERAS [Eternal Relations of Authority and Submission] view of the Trinity is not required to uphold a complementarian view. In fact, a complementarian view stands on its own due to the teaching of Scripture.^[76]

The other current in-house debate among complementarians is between two camps variously labelled “thin,” “narrow,” or “ideological” and “thick,” “broad,” or “natural.”

The questions under consideration are ones like: “apart from their bodies, are men and women basically the same, except for the fact that God has assigned them different roles and responsibilities in marriage and the church, in which case, God’s different demands to men and women are somewhat arbitrary or at least appear to be?” (This is the thin-narrow-ideological group.) Or “is there a deep connection between who and how God has made us to be as men and women and his intentions for us in the roles and relationships in which he places us in marriage, the church, and, in some respect, in all of life?”

Responding to third wave feminism and LGBTQ+

If there are essential differences between men and women (besides our bodies), what are they? The need for clarity on these matters is even more pressing because our social context has changed.

Whereas in the early days of the debate between egalitarians and complementarians, the major social force both sides were reckoning with was second-wave feminism, now we’re in the unlikely situation where second-wave feminists like Germain Greer and J. K. Rowling share common ground with Bible-believing Christians in opposing the so-called “right” of transwomen (biological males) to access “women’s only” spaces; and meanwhile, third-wave feminists side with transwomen. And of course, that’s not all that’s changed.

Discovering Biblical Equality, third edition (2021)

Some of these changes are evident in the third edition of the orange book, which is now blue and green: Discovering Biblical Equality, published in 2021. I want to mention two aspects of the new edition worth noting.

First, in the old orange book, there is a full chapter arguing against the claim that “the acceptance of egalitarianism logically lead[s] to acceptance of homosexuality” and that there is a hermeneutical “slippery slope” from the former to the latter.^[77] But in the latest edition, Ronald Pierce, who’s been an editor of all three editions, writes a chapter on same-sex marriage in which he admits that the slippery slope sometimes does exist, explaining that when he became an egalitarian:

One of my colleagues predicted that I would endorse same-sex marriage within ten years because of the “interpretive method” that led me to advocate for gender equality. This slippery slope argument is still commonly heard—and for some this has been their experience.^[78]

And while he clearly holds a non-affirming view on same-sex marriage, he is still prepared to speak of “affirming and nonaffirming evangelicals” and the plausibility of affirming arguments being “sufficient to warrant further consideration.”^[79] Bear in mind, CBE came into existence after a split with the Women’s Caucus over homosexuality.

The second development in latest edition is the inclusion of two essays that reject gender essentialism,^[80] which Christa McKirland explains in her essay is

“the belief that males and females are born with distinctively different natures, determined biologically rather than culturally. […]” In other words, men and women are essentially different on the basis of being a man or a woman [where] there are male persons who are meant to act like men (masculinity) and there are female persons who are meant to act like women (femininity).^[81]

The Nashville Statement (2017)

It was in the context of these same social changes that CBMW in 2017 produced The Nashville Statement, which contains a Preamble, fourteen affirmations, and with corresponding denials. Nashville includes statements about God’s design for marriage being between one man and one woman, the equality of male and female as image-bearers, the sinfulness of same-sex attraction and transgender identity, and the hope for us all in the gospel.

Nashville is not a replacement for Danvers. Whereas Danvers responded to evangelical feminism (as the subtitle of RBMW says), the Nashville Statement seeks to uphold “biblical sexuality” for Christians, churches, and ministries now living in a changed culture, where even the categories of male and female and what they mean are under dispute.

And this new social context means there are new questions being asked about what it means to be male and female, and I think the answers to these questions are still being written. They’re not yet part of the history of complementarianism. But as Katie McCoy points out in her recent essay entitled “What it means to be male and female”:

However, the digital din of debate over evangelical gender roles has been nearly eclipsed by the clamor of a new rhetoric, with concepts like gender fluidity, gender nonconformity, and transgenderism rapidly transposing cultural mores. Before one can answer the question of what ministries a woman can fulfill in the church, one must now first define what a woman is. Before one can defend marriage as a covenant between male and female, one must be prepared to stipulate that maleness and femaleness are unalterably determined at birth. In short, conversations on how one expresses one’s gender risk falling on deaf ears apart from a clear defense of why gender differentiation matters at all. And in a society that increasingly accepts the idea that one’s biology is irrelevant to determine one’s gender, answering this why seems more urgent than ever.^[82]

[1] This essay was first delivered as a seminar for the Priscilla and Aquila Centre, Moore Theological College, Sydney, Australia, August 13, 2025 (https://paa.moore.edu.au/).

[2] Wayne Grudem, “Personal Reflections on the History of CBMW and the State of the Gender Debate,” Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Spring 2009): 14.

[3] Denny Burk, “Mere Complementarianism,” Eikon: A Journal for Biblical Anthropology 1.2 (Fall 2019): 31.

[4] Grudem, “Personal Reflections,” 14.

[5] “Appendix 2: The Danvers Statement,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1991), 469–471. This book is hereafter referred to in footnotes as RBMW. The Danvers Statement is available online at “The Danvers Statement,” CBMW.org, https://cbmw.org/about/the-danvers-statement/.

[6] Burk, “Mere Complementarianism,” 30.

[7] Elinor Burkett and Laura Brunell, “Feminism,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed August 7, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism.

[8] Betty Friedan, The Feminist Mystique (London: Penguin Books, 1965), 13.

[9] Kirsten Birkett, The Essence of Feminism (Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2000), 46.

[10] Judith Lorber, The Variety of Feminisms and their Contributions to Gender Equality (Bibliotheks-und Informationssystem der Universität Oldenburg, 1997), 24.

[11] Mary Kassian, The Feminist Gospel (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1992), 66–67.

[12] Judith Lorber, The Variety of Feminisms and their Contributions to Gender Equality, (Bibliotheks-und Informationssystem der Universität Oldenburg, 1997), 17.

[13] Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (Urbano and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1969, 1970, 1990, 2000), 33 (italics added).

[14] Millett, Sexual Politics, 28.

[15] Millett, Sexual Politics, 51.

[16] Harold W. Hoehner, “Can a Woman be a Pastor-Teacher?” JETS 50.4 (December 2007): 762; Pamela D. H. Cochran, Evangelical Feminism: A History (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 23.

[17] Ronald W. Pierce, “Contemporary Evangelicals for Gender Equality,” in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy, ed. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, 2^nd rev. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 60.

[18] “About the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus,” Christian Feminism Today, https://eewc.com/about/.

[19] Daughters of Sarah 1, No. 1 (1974): 1, cited in Cochran, Evangelical Feminism, 33.

[20] John Dart, “Evangelical Women’s Caucus Backs Gay Rights,” Los Angeles Times (July 19, 1986), https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-19-me-26359-story.html.

[21] Mary Daly, “After the Death of God the Father: from the March 12, 1971 issue,” Commonweal, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/after-death-god-father.

[22] Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father (Boston, MA: Beacon, 1973), cited by Judith Plaskow, “Movement and Emerging Scholarship: Feminist Biblical Scholarship in the 1970s in the United States,” in Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century: Scholarship and Movement, ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2014), 29.

[23] Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Boston, MA: Beacon, 1973, 1985), 19.

[24] Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983, 1994), 49.

[25] Virginia Mollencott, letter to Christian Century (March 7, 1984, p. 252) cited by Clark Pinnock in Women, Authority and the Bible, ed. Alvera Michelsen (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986), 51

[26] Rosemary Radford Ruether, “The Future of Feminist Theology in the Academy,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 53 (1985): 710 (italics added).

[27] J. I. Packer, “Understanding the Differences,” in Women, Authority and the Bible, ed. Alvera Michelsen, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986), 298.

[28] Simon Kistemaker, “Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting,” JETS 30.1 (March 1987): 121.

[29] Grudem, “Personal Reflections,” 13.

[30] Kistemaker, “Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting,” 121.

[31] Grudem, “Personal Reflections,” 13.

[32] Grudem, “Personal Reflections,” 13–14.

[33] Grudem, “Personal Reflections,” 14.

[34] Pierce, “Contemporary Evangelicals for Gender Equality,” 64.

[35] Mimi Haddad, “CBE International and Gilbert Bilizekian,” CBE International, https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/cbe-international-and-gilbert-bilezikian/.

[36] “1986 EWC Conference: Free Indeed … Empowered for Action,” Christian Feminism Today, https://eewc.com/1986-conference/.

[37] The second edition removed an essay by Judy Brown, who in 2004 was convicted of the attempted murder of the husband of her lesbian lover. I am grateful to Denny Burk for bringing this to my attention. See Gene Edward Veith, “Murder, She Wrote: The Strange and Sad Case of Felon/Theologian Judy Brown,” World (April 30, 2005), https://wng.org/articles/murder-she-wrote-1617620056.

[38] “The Danvers Statement,” Rationale 6; Affirmation 4, 6; “Men, Women, and Biblical Equality,” Application: Family, 3.

[39] Grudem, “Personal Reflections,” 15.

[40] “The Danvers Statement,” Purpose 5; Affirmation 4; “Men, Women, and Biblical Equality,” Application: Community, 1.

[41] John Piper and Wayne Grudem, “Charity, Clarity, and Hope,” RBMW,  404.

[42] Rebecca Merrill Groothius and Ronald W. Pierce, “Introduction,” in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity with Hierarchy, 13; with slight differences, Ronald W. Pierce, Cynthia Long Westfall, and Christa McKirland, “Introduction,” in Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural and Practical Perspectives, ed. Ronald W. Pierce, Cynthia Long Westfall, and Christa McKirland, 3^rd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2021), 2.

[43] Affirmation 1 and 2.

[44] John Piper and Wayne Grudem, RBMW, xv.

[45] Piper and Grudem, Preface, RBMW, xiii–xiv.

[46] Packer, “Understanding the Differences,” 298.

[47] Burk, “Mere Complementarianism,” 32.

[48] E.g., Doug Wilson, “FAQs on Men, Women, and Sexuality,” Blog and Mablog (April 4, 2024), https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/faqs-on-men-women-and-sexuality.html; Dan Hult, “Biblical Patriarchy: Dispelling the Myths and Embracing God’s Design,” Staff and Hammer Blog (February 23, 2025), https://danhult.com/2025/02/23/biblical-patriarchy-dispelling-the-myths-and-embracing-gods-design/. See also Doug Ponder, “After Complementarianism What? Why Egalitarians are still winning the evangelical gender debate,” Christ Over All (June 30, 2025), https://christoverall.com/article/longform/after-complementarianism-what-why-egalitarians-are-still-winning-the-evangelical-gender-debate/; Kevin DeYoung, “Death of the Patriarchy? Complementarity and the Scandal of ‘Father Rule,’” Desiring God (July 19, 2022) https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/death-to-the-patriarchy; Michael Carlino, “Male Headship or Servant Leadership? Yes,”, Eikon 5.2 (Fall 2023): 34–44; Denny Burk, “Why I Do Not Favor the Moniker ‘Biblical Patriarchy,” Denny Burk (August 14, 2025), https://www.dennyburk.com/why-i-do-not-favor-the-moniker-biblical-patriarchy/.

[49] Rosemary Lucy Hill and Kim Allen, “‘Smash the patriarchy’: the changing meanings and work of ‘patriarchy’ online,” Feminist Theory 22.2 (2021): 10.

[50] Burk, “Mere Complementarianism,” 31.

[51] E.g., Beth Moore cited by Yonat Shimron and Bob Smietana, “Beth Moore Apologizes for Her Role in Elevating ‘Complementarian’ Theology that Limits Women Leaders,” Religion News Service (April 7, 2021), https://religionnews.com/2021/04/07/beth-moore-apologizes-for-complementarian-theology-women-leaders/; Aaron Renn, “Why Complementarian Gender Theology is New,” Aaron Renn (July 23 2025), https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/complementarianism-is-new?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web.

[52] Denny Burk, “Is Complementarianism a Man-Made Doctrine?”, The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (August 6, 2021), https://cbmw.org/2021/06/08/is-complementarianism-a-man-made-doctrine-2/.

[53] Janet West, Daughters of Freedom: A History of Women in the Australian Church (Sutherland, NSW: Albatross Books, 1997), 409.

[54] “A Brief Outline History of MOW and the Struggle for Women’s Ordination in Australia,” MOW Sydney, http://www.mow.faithweb.com/history.html.

[55] West, Daughters of Freedom, 411.

[56] As happened in other Anglican jurisdictions, the matter advanced with “irregular” ordinations, which were then followed by the necessary legislation. The bishop of Canberra-Goulburn, Owen Dowling, announced he was going to ordain eleven women in February (against General Synod’s advice), only to be stopped by a court injunction that was later set aside. Then Archbishop of Perth, Peter Carnley took matters into his own hands and ordained 10 women as priests on March 7.

[57] Avril Lonsdale, “Discuss the factors which led to the formation of Equal But Different and assess its contribution to the 1992 debates surrounding the ordination of women to the priesthood,” unpublished paper (2020).

[58] AMS Staff, “Priscilla and Aquila comes of age,” Sydney Anglicans (February 15, 2012), https://sydneyanglicans.net/news/priscilla-and-aquila-comes-of-age.

[59] “About,” Priscilla and Aquila Centre,” https://paa.moore.edu.au/about/.

[60] D. A. Carson, The Inclusive Language Debate: A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 29.

[61] Carson, Inclusive-Language Debate, 27.

[62] Who included James Dobson from Focus on the Family, Grudem, President of CBMW, and Piper, co-editor of RBMW.

[63] Timothy C. Morgan, “Biblical Feminist Press for Gender Inclusive NIV,” Christianity Today (September 1, 1997), 78.

[64] Carson, Inclusive-Language Debate, 35.

[65] Denny Burk, “The Translation of Gender Terminology in the NIV 2011,” JBMW 16.2 (Spring 2011), 18.

[66] “Meet the Translators,” NIV, https://www.thenivbible.com/niv-translators/.

[67] See Burk, “Translation of Gender Terminology,” 17–33.

[68] Vern S. Poythress, “Gender-Neutral Bible Translations, some twenty years later,” WTJ 84 (2022): 54.

[69] Summarised from “FAQ,” Christian Standard Bible, https://csbible.com/about-the-csb/faqs/#faq/what-is-the-christian-standard-bible-approach-on-translating-gender-language.

[70] “The History of the ESV,” Crossway (October 8, 2021), https://www.crossway.org/articles/the-history-of-the-esv/?srsltid=AfmBOoqaAYKqucxvTxUnaH4bQ-x-ibZZrsrLr4fngdph5S118lXsEeW_.

[71] “10 Things you Should Know about the ESV Translation,” Crossway (February 18, 2021), https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-things-you-should-know-about-the-esv-translation/?srsltid=AfmBOop41yZcMcnPXuNnzzsObSekFMw40b_7VvYGhW36QdV_bsq4lTwQ; Although, see David Brunn, “Gender in Bible Translation: A Crucial Issue Still Mired in Misunderstanding,” Themelios 49.1 (April 2024), https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/gender-in-bible-translation-a-crucial-issue-still-mired-in-misunderstanding/

[72] Kathy Keller, Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles: A Case for Gender Roles in Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 12.

[73] John P. Dickson, Hearing Her Voice: A Biblical Invitation for Women to Preach (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012, 2014).

[74] Women, Sermons and the Bible: Essays Interacting with John Dickson’s Hearing Her Voice, eds. Tony Payne and Peter Bolt (Sydney: Mathias Media, 2014).

[75] Mark Thompson, “ERS: Is there order in the Trinity?,” Theological Theology (June 9, 2016), https://markdthompson.blogspot.com/2016/06/ers-is-there-order-in-trinity.html.

[76] Stephen Wellum, “Does Complementarianism Depend on ERAS?: A Response to Kevin Giles ‘The Trinity Argument for Women’s Subordination,” Eikon 5.21 (Spring 2023): 62.

[77] William J. Webb, “Gender Equality and Homosexuality,” Discovering Biblical Equality, 2nd ed., 410–413.

[78] Ronald W. Pierce, “Biblical Equality and Same-Sex Marriage,” Discovering Biblical Equality, 3rd ed., 491 (italics added).

[79] Pierce, “Biblical Equality,” 506.

[80] M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall, “Gender Differences and Biblical Interpretation: A View from the Social Sciences,” Discovering Biblical Equality, 3rd ed., 653.

[81] Christa McKirland, “Image of God and Divine Presence: A Critique of Gender Essentialism,” Discovering Biblical Equality, 3rd ed., 283.

[82] Katie J. McCoy, “What it means to be male and female,” in Created in the Image of God, ed. David S. Dockery (New York, NY: Forefront Books, 2023), 142–143 (emphasis original).