Authority structure or not? CBMW and SBTS co-sponsored event on gender and Trinity

Complementarians argue that the Bible teaches hierarchy and an authority/submission structure within the Trinity, a structure that provides a model for the way gender roles should operate within the home. Egalitarians see no such structure within the Godhead and thus argue that none should be in place within the home. But who is correct?

The School of Church Ministries at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and CBMW will co-sponsor a panel discussion on these crucial questions at 10 a.m., Sept. 9 at the seminary. Gender Blog will post audio after the event.

Panelists will include Southern Seminary theology professors Bruce Ware and Gregg Allison. Randy Stinson, president of CBMW and dean of the School of Church Ministries, will serve as moderator.

Ware, who is a CBMW council member, has written extensively on the Trinity and gender, including the book, "Father, Son & Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance."  Allison has written much in the area of historical theology.  Both theologians will argue in favor of the historic complementarian position and will seek to show the unbiblical nature of the egalitarian view.

Stinson said the issue is vital for pastors because the way one views the Godhead and gender goes a long way toward determining the way one views God Himself. All pastors and future pastors will face this issue within their ministries, Stinson said, so it is crucial that they begin to build a biblical understanding of Trinity and gender.

"Every student is going to have to deal with gender roles and every student is going to have to have a theological understanding, not just of gender roles, but of how this fits in particular with their understanding of God," Stinson said. "God and gender intersect here, and these are two very important things for all of our students to understand."

The discussion will begin, Stinson said, by dealing with recent accusations against complementarians made by egalitarian scholars such as Millard Erickson and Kevin Giles. Erickson, Giles and other scholars brand the complementarian view of the Trinity as heresy.

"Somebody is wrong," Stinson said. "Egalitarians are making strong accusations against complementarians. We can't both claim to have an orthodox understanding of the Trinity yet have two different versions and then claim that our particular version is going to drive, or at least undergird, our understanding of gender roles in the home and in the church."

"So what we have in this debate is a cross-section of a historic doctrine of the church and the question of how that doctrine is used to work out the way in which gender roles are viewed in the home and in the church," Stinson said. "This is a very important contemporary debate. We want to help our students understand the contours of the debate and understand a little bit about the orthodox view of the Trinity, the relationship between the members of the Godhead, and its implications for gender."