Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry by Stanley Grenz with Denise Muir Kjesbo

In this egalitarian book, Stanley Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo interact extensively with the complementarian position, and indeed, they do better than most. The tone of the book is peaceful and non-combative. For this, I am grateful. But inspite of its irenic nature, the book still fails to accurately represent the complementarian position. If I did not know better, I would be led to believe that complementarians are exceedingly repressive and anti-woman.

For example, Grenz asserts that complementarians require that all women submit to all men solely on the basis of gender (p. 153). He claims that complementarians conclude that... men more completely reflect the divine image than do women (p. 169). According to Grenz, in a pattern of complementarity, only the male voice is heard in planning and decision-making (p.172), there is no freedom, reconciliation and equality (p.179), and the door to women in ministry is closed (p.184). Grenz says that complementarity promotes dominance (p.179), and that those who hold such a view are keen to connect power and dominance with authority (p. 227). These thinly veiled euphemisms stop just short of implying that complementarians advocate oppression and abuse of women. They misrepresent the complementarian position and do little to contribute to a fair, rational discussion of the question at hand. In the first section of the book, Kjesbo spends a great deal of time tracing the involvement of selective women in church history. She concludes that in renewal movements, women are very involved in ministry and leadership. According to Kjesbo, transition within renewal movements from the charismatic to the credentialing phase generally leads to the loss of leadership for women. Therefore, she implies, in order to keep the church in a state of renewal, women ought to be ordained as pastors. I found this line of reasoning strained. It is about as logical as arguing that because firefighters are always found at fires, firefighters are the ones responsible for starting fires. The conclusion simply does not follow the observation.

In the following portion of the book, Grenz presents his scriptural arguments for an egalitarian position. In this section, he demonstrates a propensity to interpret the text based on his speculative reconstruction of culture. On page 126, for example, he points out that the metropolis of Ephesus had hundreds of hetaerai: highly educated women who were respected teachers of men. Thus, he concludes, Paul's prohibition against women s authoritative teaching of men (1 Tim. 3:12) was due to the fact that these highly educated females were teaching heresy in the church. Just a few pages later (p.131), he does an about-face and suggests that the cultural climate of Ephesus was hostile to women teachers and that women teaching in public would have been offensive. He also states that the low level of education among first-century women might have been the reason for Paul's directives. Clearly, Grenz does not know exactly what the cultural situation in Ephesus was. Notwithstanding this fact, Paul does not refer to cultural reasons for his directive, so it is erroneous to assume that he had any particular cultural situation in mind. Furthermore, Grenz often draws strong conclusions from scanty biblical evidence. For example, he concedes that the verse used to ordain women to the diaconate is ambiguous (p. 88), that it is unlikely that Phoebe held a formal office (p.89), that the designation of elder is never used in conjunction with specific women (p. 90), that it is exegetically inconclusive that Elect Lady of 1 John refers to a female leader (p. 92), that the argument putting forth Junia as a female apostle has ambiguities and difficulties (p. 95-96), and yet somehow, after all this speculation and uncertainty, he is able to definitively conclude that every aspect of the church's ministry is open to [women] (p.97).

Grenz concludes the book with an extensive discussion of leadership and ordained ministry positions. Although his purpose in this was not to present an exhaustive theology of the responsibilities of the office of pastor/elder/bishop, I found his tact questionable. Instead of carefully exegeting Scripture, Grenz basis his focus on the philosophies of secular leadership gurus. While these authors may have some good things to say, I cannot help but wonder if Grenz's position on leadership in the church is influenced more by them than it is by the Bible. I may be wrong, but his approach towards understanding church leadership left me feeling very uneasy. Throughout the book, Grenz and Kjesbo present woman's teaching, leading, and exercising authority in the church as an all-or-nothing proposition. They do not recognize or admit that there is a whole spectrum of ministry outside of the ordained office of pastor/elder wherein these gifts can be exercised. Representations such as these disturb me greatly, for I am a woman gifted in leadership and teaching, and I am able to exercise my gifts fully within a complementarian framework. I share Grenz and Kjesbo's passion to see women using their spiritual gifts, and I heartily agree that the stringent clergy-laity distinction has hindered the ministry of women. But in my mind, their proposed solution of extending clergy status to women perpetuates rather than solves the problem.

Reading this book from the perspective of a CBMW executive committee member has led me to a number of conclusions. To begin, we need to clearly articulate and emphasize that complementarity is indeed pro-women. I know that this almost sounds patronizing, but egalitarians have effectively closed the hearts of many women to truth by stating again and again that a complementarian position is against women. Women long to hear and to know that they reflect the divine image wholly and completely, that God loves them just as much as He loves men, and that they are first-class citizens in the Kingdom. Second, we need to emphasize that the door to women in ministry is wide open -- ministry of many different kinds. A complementarian framework need not hinder any woman from exercising her gifts fully.

Third, we must agree with egalitarians that God does desire freedom, reconciliation and equality between the sexes, but we must stand firm on the conviction that the meaning of these must be defined by God alone, and that we cannot truly experience freedom, reconciliation or equality outside of His revealed plan.

Finally, Grenz and Kjesbo raise an important point when they identify the need to re-evaluate the functioning of the contemporary clergy-laity structure. In present-day churches, this distinction often restricts ministry to clergy alone. In these cases, the Woman's Question is really much more of a question about how we, as a priesthood of believers, each ought to minister and serve in the body of Christ. Even though I do not agree with Grenz and Kjesbo's proposed solution, I do agree that the debate about the roles of men and women in the church can never be addressed apart from addressing basic questions of ecclesiology.