Is evangelical feminism the slippery slope that bottoms out at liberalism?

In his new book Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism (Crossway) theologian Wayne Grudem answers that question in the affirmative and seeks to show the historical and theological connections between feminism and its logical end, liberalism.

Grudem argues that methods of biblical interpretation that evangelical feminists employ to arrive at their conclusions utterly undermine the authority of Scripture.

"Can a movement that espouses this many ways of undermining the authority of Scripture possibly be right?" Grudem writes. "If God had wanted to teach us an egalitarian position, would he have made it so hard to find in Scripture that it would require this many incorrect methods to discover and defend it?"

In Part I, Grudem examines the historical paths that some in recent church history have taken to liberalism. In this section, Grudem develops a connection between liberalism and the endorsement of women’s ordination in the church.

In Part II, the author analyzes various views that undermine the authority of Scripture. These dangerous views include the denial of the truthfulness of the first three chapters of Genesis, the assertion that the apostle Paul was wrong in his view of women in the church, and the so-called "redemptive movement" hermeneutic of William Webb, among several others.

"In a surprising number of evangelical feminist writings, the authors have published statements that either deny the complete truthfulness of Scripture or else deny the full authority of Scripture as well as the Word of God for us today," Grudem writes.

In Part III, Grudem exposes many of the unsubstantiated or untruthful arguments that evangelical feminists make to buttress their theology. Among the fallacious claims that Grudem unmasks is the notion that women homeowners also served as elders in early churches, that female deacons had governing authority in the early church, and that the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father within the Trinity is contrary to historic doctrine, among numerous other claims.

In Part IV, Grudem assesses the expanding landscape of evangelical feminism and seeks to show where the movement will go from its current position. The next step, he argues, is the denial of anything uniquely masculine.

"The egalitarian agenda will not stop simply with the rejection of male headship in marriage and the establishment of women as pastors and elders in churches," he asserts. "There is something much deeper at stake. At the foundation of egalitarianism is a dislike and a rejection of anything uniquely masculine. It is a dislike of manhood itself."

Grudem is a board member of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s (CBMW) and serves as research professor of Bible and theology at Phoenix Seminary in Scottsdale, Ariz.

He is also the author the massive 2004 volume from Multnomah entitled Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Disputed Questions. He also served as co-editor with John Piper of the seminal complementarian work Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which was recently re-released by Crossway with a new cover and new preface.

Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? is available through the CBMW webstore.

In his 1999 work, Podles, a senior editor for "Touchstone" magazine, argues that Western Christianity has become increasingly feminized in recent years, precipitating a mass exodus of men from local congregations.

Podles, who appeared with a panel of fellow Touchstone editors Sept. 14 on the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says men continue to abstain from church attendance and involvement in record numbers.

"It has gotten worse," he said. "All the polls say that male attendance continues to fall. A lot of it in the Catholic Church was a result of the pedophilia scandal. Men said, ‘I want nothing to do with this nor do I want my sons to have anything to do with this.’ It continues to fall as a greater percent of the clergy in mainline churches are female the churches are more feminized and become more of a women’s club."

He estimated that between 80-90 percent of church workers in Roman Catholic congregations are women and said Protestant congregations are largely populated by female workers as well. Podles called on pastors to bring men back into the church because their biblical leadership is desperately needed in local congregations as well as in homes.

"The pastor should think of himself as pastoring the men and then the men are pastoring their families," he said. "For many good reasons, he (the pastor) should not be the women’s direct spiritual counselor because the husband (often) resents the spiritual influence the pastor has on the wife.

"So he should first of all try to think of himself as the pastor of the men. If they are not there, go out and meet them. Wherever the men are, if they are not in church, go out and find them. If they won’t come to you, go to them."

Podles bemoaned the eclipse of a vigorous Christianity that views the daily Christian life in the militaristic terms of warfare that Scripture employs. Only a muscular Christianity will be able to contend earnestly in the marketplace of faiths with such a literally militaristic religion as Islam, he said.

"Our Christian culture is feminized and it is not combative and it cannot meet the challenge of Islam," he said. "I’m not saying we should fight them . . . but in Africa, Islam is violently persecuting Christians and our country does nothing about it. Islam has bloody borders all around it and Christians in general don’t care about the sufferings of their compatriots.

"We have lost both in the visible realm and in our internal lives the sense that life is a battle, that it is a warfare, and that military virtues are a necessity . . . [the Christian has to] have enormous courage, he’s got to have enormous resistance of the powers of evil and temptation, but the masculine virtues continue to evaporate from almost all modern Christian churches. I really see no recovery. Perhaps the challenge of Islam and the prospect of martyrdom will strengthen our backbones."

CBMW board member and evangelical scholar Wayne Grudem addressed the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., on the subject of biblical manhood and womanhood Sept. 8-9.

Grudem spoke to students of the the Torrey Institute on topics that included the key issues in the manhood and womanhood controversy, women in ministry, and responding to egalitarian objections. The sessions on Sep 9 were held on Biola's campus, while the Sep 8 session was held at Grace Free Evangelical Church where Dr. Erik Thoennes, professor of theology at Biola and a CBMW council member, serves as elder.

Grudem is the author of Evangelicalism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Questions among other books. He is also author of the forthcoming book Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? set for release this month by Crossway.

The Torrey Honors Institute is a program in the liberal arts and biblical studies for undergraduates at Biola University. The institute includes undergraduate students that possess outstanding academic ability, Christian character, and potential for leadership. For more information on the Torrey Honors Institute, please see www.biola.edu/academics/torrey.

Sovereign Grace Ministries hopes to teach men how to be men according to the Scriptures in a conference to be held early next year.

Sovereign Grace will examine the topic of biblical manhood under the theme "The Quest: A Journey Through Biblical Masculinity" at its regional conference Jan. 11-13 at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pa.

Men ages 15 and up throughout the Northeast and Midwest regions of the country will gather to explore the foundations of masculinity, as well as to learn how to defend biblical manhood in a culture that is beset by feminism that denies the biblical standard of manhood. The conference will demonstrate how to apply biblical masculinity in the home, workplace, church, and within relationships.

Speakers will include Sovereign Grace leaders Joshua Harris (who serves as a CBMW council member), Dave Harvey, and Peter Greasely. Bob Kauflin will lead worship. To register, visit www.sovereigngraceministries.org.

Sovereign Grace founder C. J. Mahaney serves as vice-charmain of the board for The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW).

Fifteen years ago, complementarian scholars collaborated on a monumental work entitled Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (RBMW) that became the bulwark defense of gender roles in the home and church from a historic evangelical perspective.

Crossway Books re-released RBMW this week complete with a new cover and new preface which was co-written by Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) leaders J. Ligon Duncan and Randy Stinson. RBMW is edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. With its original release, RBMW was named Christianity Today’s Book of the Year for 1993.

In 2006 the work is perhaps more necessary than it was at the time of its original release with egalitarianism and feminism holding sway in many churches, evangelical schools, and homes, Duncan and Stinson assert in the new preface. Duncan serves as chairman of the board for CBMW, and Stinson serves as executive director for the organization.

"While evangelical complementarians have delivered an impressive body of exegetical and theological argument . . . there has been a continuing erosion of commitment to the church’s classic understanding of what the Bible teaches about male-female role relationships," they write.

"An increasing number of evangelical publishers (once bastions of conservatism regarding gender roles) are publishing books from a feminist perspective, and some of them now refuse to print anything that assumes or advances complementarianism. Likewise, well-regarded campus ministries have adopted and implemented functionally egalitarian patterns of ministry, and many evangelical faculties, even in the most conservative of institutions, promote egalitarianism."

The new printing of RBMW includes all of the chapters and materials from the original. The work covers the entire scope of gender issues from the biblical meaning of headship to head coverings and an examination of gender issues in church history.

Essayists include Piper, Grudem, Elisabeth Elliott, Dorothy Patterson, Paige Patterson, John M. Frame, Vern S. Poythress, Thomas R. Schreiner, D.A. Carson, and numerous other evangelical scholars. RBMW is available through the CBMW webstore at http://www.cbmw.org/cgi-bin/store?show|162|Gender_Issues.  The entire text is available online at http://www.cbmw.org/rbmw/.