Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian Leadership

The simplest way for me to review this book is to excerpt a footnote about it from a book which I am writing (a VERY long footnote, but since I haven't even completed the first draft of my book, I have time to hone it :-)). I trust this will be helpful to some despite the decontextualization:"I once found myself hunched over my Bible begging God to show me His truth about gender roles and marital dynamics no matter what the personal repercussions. I asked Him to show me His grand plan for submission and how it exalts Him. I really wanted to see the "beauty of His holiness" in this area and to "own" it in my heart. I felt He began to. However, as I wrestled to assimilate this understanding, He seemed to tap me on the shoulder and tell me to read the passages again. That's when He continued on to emphasize this role for men [Here I am referencing a sentence in my book which goes: 'I would venture to say that through the new covenant God is calling men and husbands today to not only cease hindering but to seek to help God effect this portion of the gospel of reconciliation for the women in their lives wherever they have been placed beneath by society and by the curse' although I'm theologically unsure of the vocabulary of 'the curse' part at the moment; those who've already read a lot of theology on this topic will know why I'm splitting hairs over that].Yet as I rather sheepishly typed this sentence into the book's first draft, I was still looking for theological correction, clarity, and confirmation. As I pondered the biblical analogies set up between God and Christ, Christ and the Church, and man and wife, I read the roles according to this dynamic where the one in a weaker position submits to the other, bringing glory to their person, but on the other hand, that other's great joy and divine call is to use their particular graces to exalt the one in a weaker position to a place of equal value, care, AND authority. However, despite the variety of honorable theologians approaching these topics, I was not finding any who conceptualized the roles of either the trinity or marriage this way. And, generally, I resisted introducing the whole "women" issue into this chapter for the stumbling block it might present and for fear of looking like a fool.Some of you may be familiar with the two primary theological camps which lie within conservative evangelicalism in relation to gender roles. What God was showing me looked very little like the practices of the "complementarian" camp and more like the concept of "mutual submission" espoused by the "egalitarian" camp. Yet I was dissatisfied not only with complementarian theology but also with some egalitarian theology, particularly where it touched on the mystery of the Trinity (I personally found it too simplistic and not really representative of the relationship I found described in the Bible).  Imagine my surprise to read a third option which gelled more fully with what I felt God had shown me about both the Trinity and marriage. As described by Sarah Sumner in Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian Leadership, both the Trinitarian relationship between Father and Son and the relationships between husbands and wives rely on a concept of mutual exaltation. I coin her theology "dynamism" and its modus operandi "mutual exaltation." She declines to call the attitudes and acts of men toward wives "submission," even if all believers are called to submit to one another, for the Bible's terminology when specifically looking at this relationship is "sacrifice."Sumner sees the need for this distinctive terminology as reflective of the physical advantage with which God has honored men (1 Peter 3:7). The following is my further commentary on this physical advantage, not hers: Once the fall occurred, a corrupted free will naturally made the physical advantage a positional one, one that has dominoed, via abuses, into a wide variety of societal advantages. At the fall, God noted that it would. Now some, including egalitarians and including Sumner though not an egalitarian, would say that God released a curse to that affect at the fall and that the curse has been removed in the cross. Some, including many or all complementarians, say that the positional advantage is either God's perfect or permissive will (those who consider it His permissive will might also call it a "curse") for the entire course of the world even if whatever they consider its abuses are not. I also have heard some say regarding either one or both points of Genesis 3:16b (those of male rulership and of women's "desire"--loss of godly focus, frustration, covetousness for attention and power, etc.) that God was merely describing the natural course of sin in light of the physical advantage, not His ultimate intentions for us even on earth, and so we are, just as those egalitarians who view it as a "curse" per se would declare, called to combat one or both of these dynamics in ourselves through the enabling of our new life in Christ. I think I typically hear this in reference to the "desire" portion alone, indicating to me that some number are inching toward a realization that perhaps in Christ this is not how it is supposed to remain (just a step shy of denouncing rulership).As Christ was in a place of vulnerability in relation to the Father despite His equal status but has now been raised up to sit on His throne beside Him, so men are called to raise their wives up in their relating. This does not mean that man in any way mediates a relationship with God for woman, as that would contradict scripture, but his decisions, actions, and attitudes raise her up--her basic needs as well as her emotions, ideas, and callings--in equal regard to himself as she exalts him by submitting to him from her position of relative vulnerability. Nor does it mean that men are superior, have authority over their wives, or are "head"s for women in general (Her examination of "headship" is at once the simplest and the most nuanced by mystery which I've encountered and appears to me likely to be truer to the Greek and to the biblical text than that of either the complementarian or egalitarian camps.... Too many explanations for the "what-it-is-not"s would necessarily have to be addressed for me to present it here).As a woman concerned about her godly walk and the integrity of women leaders, Sumner stresses women's responsibility to humbly and patiently submit while still confronting their husbands' sins in a biblical way. The latter portion of that idea would, unfortunately, be radical for many Christians. She is gentler, it seems, with her male readers--initially, and diplomatically, focusing on an example of sacrifice versus rude entitlement mentality which would appeal to the reason and chivalry of most Christian men, regardless of their "camp" (Namely, in accord with the true story of a Christian man in her acquaintance, the idea that a man might tell his wife to take cold showers so that he could take hot ones). Nonetheless, she clearly envisions an ideal where men and women are both fully engaged in exalting the other not just in like areas of egregious self-assertion but in all facets of life.Obviously, I find the book worth consideration and would also identify Craig S. Keener's book Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women's Ministry in the Letters of Paul as essential to examination of this topic."One of the points on which I question Sumner, though I thoroughly agree with the HEART behind it--one of humility--is that of not pushing in any degree for equality in ministry titles. I am concerned for the generation coming up (here I talk like an old folk, and I'm only thirty), for words do mean something.... A more widespread breakthrough on that front could greatly ease their journey into seeing, accepting, and walking out their callings. However, without the hearts (and actions) of humility and understanding to compliment a shift among both men and women to see women exalted in title, the battle could be waged in vain, yielding disrepute for God's name through the diva-personalities and unnecessarily sharp and forceful divisions that would emerge. So I am happy to say that for all of Sumner's intellect, one of her greatest strengths and emphases remains this wisdom and character of the heart.I hope that gives potential readers a better feel for the book, and I hope Sumner would consider it an accurate assessment. Incidentally--and bizarrely--Sumner's other current book, Leadership above the Line, parallels one of my books-in-process in which I am looking at the prophetic redemptive destinies of three of the tribes of Israel, for Sumner considers three leadership types which inexactly but intriguingly correspond to my observations about these tribes. I guess she is the author of the hour for me! More, more!Deborah J. Shore[...]P.S.--Added Sept. 2008: I strongly recommend Jim and Sarah Sumner's new book on marriage, "Just How Married Do You Want to Be?"

This book is truly like none I have ever seen before. It is neither complimentarian nor egalitarian, but it offers more definitive answers than either position has about certain gender issues. I admit I was frusterated when first coming across this book's reviews; they managed to say a lot about the book without clarifying Sumner's exact stance on certain matters! Only now do I see why; Sumner refuses to absolutely side with either complimentarians or egalitarians and in fact claims to disagree with both about several issues (something I didn't know was possible). After digging into her work myself, a book that began as an apparent aberration became one of the clearest and most powerful tools I've ever come across.Since Sumner refuses to take sides with either the complimentarians or the egalititarians, I'll make this review as specific as I can in regards to what she DOES believe. Firstly, I'll answer the question that I myself was burning to know when I first came across this book: does Sumner believe that women may pastor? Well, yes, she does. However, don't misunderstand me. Sumner's belief thus has to do more with the fact that she doesn't believe women CAN'T pastor than with the idea that they can. You won't find her with the complimentarians who try to forcibly yank women out of the pulpit, but you also won't find her with the most forceful egalitarians. The fact of the matter is, the issue of authority in church is not a passionate or central one for Sumner one way or the other, and she gives several reasons throughout the book for this.Sumner's main reason for avoiding the flamethrowing involved in the issues of church authority is that the only person the Bible really stresses about being in authority is Christ; not man or woman, but God. Sumner points out that the Bible says not to lead each other, but to LOVE each other. When we place our own earthly demands for leadership over Christ's command for love, our faith suffers and so does the harmony God means for us to have. On the other hand, when we give God the true crown of authority and focus more on loving each other, we stop clamboring for postions of power, whether Godly or not.On the topic of women pastoring, there are two main things Sumner says to address the issue: on the one hand, she encourages women to use their gifts to the fullest and not hold back, whether this means becoming a pastor or not. She goes on to explain the self-contradicting practice of the complimentarians, which is to encourage women to give it their all OUTSIDE of church, but to remain quiet and submissive within it. On the other hand, Sumner admonishes the tendency of egalitarians and feminists to "demand" the right of women to pastor. "We have no such right or demand," Sumner says. The Bible commands us to focus on our roles as servants (to God and to each other) rather than demanding to be lords. Indeed, I think if more people surrendered this issue to God as the true authority rather than wrestling over authority among themselves like a bloody carcass among lions, they'd be a lot more content.Sumner addresses this issue again later in the book, this time to analyze Paul's infamous words of "I do not suffer a woman to hold authority over a man". While people on both sides of the issue have claimed to know exactly what Paul meant, Sumner points out that no one has really interpreted the exact meaning. On the one hand, if Paul were forbidding all women of all time to teach men in church, he'd be contradicting God's (and his own) practice of women leading and teaching people of all kinds in the church and out of it. On the other hand, what did Paul mean, then? Sumner doesn't claim to have an irrefutable answer, but she does offer a far more plausible one than many have thus far. Paul does use the word "authority" in the passage; however, the Greek word used in this case, authentien (not sure if I spelled that right) was not the usual word used to mean "authority." Authentien meant a certain kind of negative authority, such as dominance. Taking this definition into consideration, what Paul was truly saying was that he did not allow women to practice DOMINANT or degrading authority over men. If you recall, there were many women of the time influenced by a pagan religion that exhorted a dominant and anti-male goddess and women thus influenced were ignorant of true Biblical teaching. It's also important to note that Paul, right before admonishing women about abuse of authority, firstly exhorted them to learn in submission and meekness. Taking this and the meaning of authentien into consideration, the correct interpretation of this passage is that Paul was instructing women in how to learn and how NOT to teach; he was not forbidding them to teach men altogether. This refreshing and startling revelation brought me new contentment about the matter so long a thorn in my side.Perhaps the most surprising issue was Sumner's response to another passage in the Bible: the one declaring that man is the "head" of woman. Complimentarians claim the meaning of head is "authority"; egalitarians claim it means "source". BOTH sides claim that the other's definition has been proved most likely wrong by research which shows that their meaning is used very rarely in the Bible. Sumner, however, points out that neither side is likely right; the exact meaning of Christ being the head of man and man being the head of woman is still unclear, but what is clear is that both complimentarians and egalitarians have overstepped themselves and offered faulty definitions. For one thing, it's erroneous (and offensive) to claim that every man is in charge of every woman, yet this is the apparent meaning of the complimentarian definition of head as authority. The egalitarian view, however, while definitely more appealing, doesn't make complete sense either; if we were to supply the meaning of source as the definition for every use of the word "head" in this passage, it would seem to say that Christ is only the source of man and not woman! Neither side's definition, when examined critically, appears to be either correct or sensible. So, what does the term head mean? It's really not clear; Sumner freely admits she doesn't know, and neither do many who claim to. The fact is, as Paul himself admits, that the term is a mystery. Perhaps we have been erring in our attempts to de-mystify the meaning of God's ways.Exploring this book was truly a remarkable experience for me; it challenged me, changed my views about certain things, and ultimately left me a sense of peace that I'm not sure I've ever had before. In the past, I've felt pressured to seek out as many books as possible supporting the egalitarian view in order to continously build upon my convictions. After reading this work, I honestly no longer feel this need; Sumner has not only brought me new outlooks on this issue, but has also taught me to leave more to God rather than stressing over what I can't completely understand or control. I have a lot to thank her for and I recommend this to all Christians of every denomination. I'm dead serious, people: GET THIS BOOK! :)

I enjoyed the subject matter, I enjoyed her careful analysis. I just wanted to make one note, from page 136:"A man can be raped too!". Soberly I (the author) replied, "Not by a woman".This is a dangerous line in the book; this invalidates countless victims. This was an error on her part. It was unnecessary to include her (wrong) opinion on this in the context of the subject she was discussing. I felt the need to retract 1 star to point this out.

I really found this book to be spectacular. Sumner states up front that her book is to *not* answer questions but her basic theology on women according to the Bible. (Seriously if she was able to answer all questions then she would be God LOL) Sumner takes what she believes and compares it to popular mainstream leaders on both sides of the issue stray off of Biblical truths and interpret scriptures in favor of their opinion about the role of women in the church."Men and Women in the Church" is not like a popular (Complimentarian) book called "Biblical Womanhood" that I tried to read directly after finishing this one. This is a book jammed packed with scripture, footnotes, hermeneutics, Greek, Hebrew, etc. It's like taking a Seminary course and no wonder since she is a Seminary Professor. This is a book that is "hard to follow" at times but if anyone has tried to read a book about Theology this is no different.No matter what side of the issue you fall on I seriously recommend that you read this book because it's a mind stretcher and it brings up some considerably good points for both sides to consider. So I say READ IT! :D