Alan F. Johnson (1933–2018)

First, a disclaimer: I am currently in a season in my life where I am truly trying to gain an unbiased understanding on gender roles in the church and family. For all of my Christian life (over 20+ years) I have been a complementarian, ascribing to the belief that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities both in the home and the church, precluding women from ecclesiastical leadership roles. However, over the past couple of years, due to a variety of reasons, I have begun to come away from this view and open to a more egalitarian view. I am still sitting on the proverbial fence on this issue. I have not been thoroughly convinced yet that egalitarianism is truly the biblical way nor am I thoroughly convinced the complementarian view is either.

It was therefore recommended to me by a couple of individuals that I should read "How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership". I was almost assured that this book would more or less bring it home for me and that I would likely become convinced that the egalitarian view is indeed the answer.

Well, I have read it and I was disappointed. It seemed to me that many of the testimonies contained within this book were drawn from human emotion (not that it's bad). That it was more or less based on a "gut feeling" which inevitably propelled many of the women into leadership roles and changed many of the mens' views on the issue. Most of the stories told of how a woman "felt" or that she was not "feeling" as if she was doing what God wanted her to do. Or, that she was raised in a very strict ultra-conservative home and merely wanted to shed her parents old ways. In other words, the biblical precedence for an egalitarian view were minimal.

However, Tony Campolo (in chapter 5) provided what I believe was the most compelling reason why he has chosen to believe women can serve in leadership roles in the church. He provided plenty of scriptural references with a healthy dose of proper hermeneutics and cultural contextualization. After reading Campolo's take on the matter I was more convinced that the Bible does allow for women in church leadership roles. But, Campolo and perhaps Nicole (chapter 13) were a rarity in a book comprised of nearly 300 pages.

The book lacks strong scriptural support, at least in proportion to the numerous non-biblical references by at least 5 to 1. There were entire chapters void of scriptural references that bothered me. While I don't discount feelings, after all God created the human emotion, they must align with scripture especially if the issue is regarding matters of ecclesiology. And, even the biblical references that were often repeatedly used throughout the book, were a bit ambiguous. While I still remain sitting on the fence on this issue, this book hasn't prodded me to jump off to the side of egalitarianism quite yet.

In summary, if you are looking for a solid and biblically based argument for egalitarianism, I wouldn't recommend this book. If you are looking to hear some remarkable stories and struggles of men and women who have wrestled with this issue, then this would be an outstanding book for you. Otherwise, we can count on waiting this out and see where this will end up 10-15 years from now where we will likely see more women in the pulpit than ever before.… (more)