Evangelical Feminism | Wayne Grudem

Wayne Grudem. Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? Crossway, 2006. 272 pp.

Introduction

I am concerned that evangelical feminism (also called “egalitarianism”) has become a new path by which evangelicals are being drawn into theological liberalism.

When I use the phrase “theological liberalism” I mean a system of thinking that denies the complete truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God and denies the unique and absolute authority of the Bible in our lives.

When I speak of “evangelical feminism” I mean a movement that claims there are no unique leadership roles for men in marriage or in the church. According to evangelical feminism, there is no leadership role in marriage that belongs to the husband simply because he is the husband, but leadership is to be shared between husband and wife according to their gifts and desires. And there are no leadership roles in the church reserved for men, but women as well as men can be pastors and elders and hold any office in the church.

In the following pages, I attempt to show several things:

1. That liberal Protestant denominations were the pioneers of evangelical feminism, and that evangelical feminists today have adopted many of the arguments earlier used by theological liberals to advocate the ordination of women and to reject male headship in marriage
2. That many prominent evangelical feminist writers today advocate positions that deny or undermine the authority of Scripture, and many other egalitarian leaders endorse their books and take no public stance against those who deny the authority of Scripture that recent trends now show that evangelical feminists are heading toward the denial of anything uniquely masculine, and some already endorse calling God “our Mother in heaven”
3. That the history of others who have adopted these positions shows that the next step is the endorsement of the moral legitimacy of homosexuality
4. That the common thread running through all of these trends is a rejection of the effective authority of Scripture in people’s lives, and that this is the bedrock principle of theological liberalism

As I have taught for nearly thirty years in Christian colleges and seminaries, people have often asked me, “How do Christian colleges that were once Bible-believing, conservative colleges become so liberal, eventually denying the Bible in what is taught on campus?” Others have asked me, “How have so many denominations that used to be Bible-believing denominations now abandoned belief in the Bible? Why do liberal pastors now preach whatever is popular in the current culture rather than proclaiming the truth of the Bible as the Word of God?”

There are several different reasons, of course. But giving in to cultural pressure is often a significant factor. In every generation there are popular views in the culture that contradict what the Bible says, and it is so easy to compromise at one point or another.

In the early twentieth century it was so easy to give in to the liberal emphasis on “the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man” and say that people are essentially good, and they don’t need a Savior who died for their sins, and there is no such thing as hell. By following this reasoning many Christian churches followed the culture and drifted into liberalism.

Through much of the twentieth century it was easy to give in to the dominant “scientific” worldview and say that genuine miracles can’t happen because they violate the “laws of nature,” and so the virgin birth of Christ and other miracles in the Bible did not really happen, but that does not matter because the Bible still teaches us how to live a moral life. By following this reasoning many Christian churches followed the culture and drifted into liberalism.

Today, for scholars who work in the scientific community, it would be so easy to give in to the dominant view in the culture and say that all living things simply “evolved” from nonliving matter through random mutation and did not come about by direct design and creation by God. But those who adopt evolution as their explanation for the origin of life just follow the culture and drift into liberalism.

It can happen in any area. It happens when people grow weary of defending Jesus’ words, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Then it can be so easy to give in to the pressures of our tolerance-riddled culture and say that “all religions are different paths to the same God.” And then the unique message of the gospel that alone tells us how our sins can be forgiven is lost, and Christian churches just follow the culture into liberalism.

I believe the same thing is happening today with evangelical feminism. There is tremendous pressure in present-day culture to deny male leadership in the home and the church. To prove that, just ask any pastor if he enjoys preaching and teaching about male headship in marriage and the church today. Almost nobody wants to tackle the subject! It is “too controversial,” which means it will stir up objections and many people will be upset. It is not easy to stand against the culture. It is much easier to give in and say women can do whatever men can do in the church and in the home.

But what about all those Bible verses that talk about male leadership in home and church? Something has to be done with them, so for the last thirty years evangelical feminist scholars have devised thousands of pages of arguments attempting to show that those parts of the Bible don’t apply to us today, or don’t mean what people have always thought they mean, or aren’t part of the Bible, or are contradicted by experience, or are simply wrong. And so, as I explain in the following pages, the authority of the Bible is undermined.

When that happens, little by little, step by step, colleges and churches and denominations start to slide toward liberalism. This is because the claims and arguments that evangelical feminists adopt about these specific passages in the Bible set in motion a process of interpreting Scripture that will be used increasingly to nullify the authority of Scripture in other areas as well. One by one, the teachings of Scripture that are unpopular in the culture are rejected, and, one issue at a time, the church begins to sound more and more like the secular world. This is the classic path to liberalism. And I believe that evangelical feminism is leading Christians down that path one step at a time today.

What is ultimately at stake: the Bible

As I have spent more and more time analyzing egalitarian arguments, I have become more firmly convinced that egalitarianism is becoming a new path to liberalism for evangelicals in our generation.

The pioneers of evangelical feminism are liberal denominations. A number of the arguments now being used by evangelical egalitarians were used by these liberal denominations when they were approving the ordination of women. Many of the current leaders of the egalitarian movement either advocate positions that undermine the authority of Scripture or at least advertise and promote books that undermine the authority of Scripture and lead believers toward liberalism. The hints we now have of the doctrinal direction in which evangelical feminism is moving predict an increasing emphasis on an abolition of anything that is distinctly masculine. Egalitarianism is heading toward an androgynous Adam and a Jesus whose manhood is not important. It is heading toward a God who is both Father and Mother, and then only Mother. And soon the same methods of evading the teachings of Scripture on manhood and womanhood will be used, once again, by those who advocate the moral legitimacy of homosexuality.

The common denominator in all of this is a persistent undermining of the authority of Scripture in our lives. And thus my conclusion at the end of this study is that evangelical feminism is relentlessly leading Christians down the path to liberalism.

At this point someone may object, “But aren’t there evangelical feminists who don’t adopt any of these arguments you have listed? At the beginning of every chapter you have said, ‘Some evangelical feminists . . . .’ Doesn’t this imply that there are other evangelical feminists who don’t adopt any of these arguments?”

My response is that I do not know of any.

Of course nobody adopts all of the arguments I have listed, because a number of them are mutually exclusive. But every evangelical feminist author I know of adopts at least some of the arguments I have listed in this book, and most of them adopt a number of these arguments.

Moreover, these arguments are widely promoted by the egalitarian advocacy group Christians for Biblical Equality, and they are widely represented in the most recent and most comprehensive statement of the egalitarian position, the book Discovering Biblical Equality.

As explained at the beginning of this book, I am not saying that all egalitarians are liberals, or are moving toward liberalism. But I am saying that the arguments used by egalitarians actually undermine the authority of Scripture again and again, and in so doing they are leading the church step by step toward liberalism. Today some egalitarians have only taken one step in that direction and have gone no further. But a number of younger egalitarian leaders have gone further (as in calling God our Mother), and the next generation will go further, for that is the direction toward which evangelical feminism inevitably leads. Those who adopt an evangelical feminist position “buy into” an interlocking system of interpretation that will relentlessly erode the authority of Scripture in our churches.

Which will we choose? Will we follow faithfully in the path of life long obedience to all the teachings of the Word of God, believing that that is the only path to true blessing?

Or will we turn aside to evangelical feminism and be led step by step down the path to liberalism and to an ever-increasing denial of the authority of the Word of God?

From Evangelical Feminism by Wayne Grudem, copyright © 2006, pp. 15-18, 261-63. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.

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