Complementarianism VS Egalitarianism (Mike Winger)

Introduction

Complementarian View - Women and men are equal in value, but have different roles in the home and the church.

Example: Women are not suppose to be in the role of elder in the church.

Egalitarian View - Equality in person (value) and role in the home and church.

THIS IS A SECONDARY ISSUE IN CHRISTIANITY (STILL A BELIEVER IF YOU CAN’T COME TO AN AGREEMENT)

Biggest issue with this debate of women in ministry.

Do we have rules that we are using to bypass the Scriptures entirely?

Approach to the issue can be philosophical not biblical beliefs.

Problems to address:

1. When you think you life experience answers the question of what the bible says you have bypassed the bible.

Experience should not guide your reading of the bible (Eisegesis = is generally a derogatory term used to designate the practice of imposing a preconceived or foreign meaning onto a text, even if that meaning could not have been originally intended at the time of its writing.)

2. Women in ministry is the result of the evils of feminism.

3. We are fighting the evils of the patriarchy (a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line.)

This idea is in the thought process of egalitarian writers.

4. Equality of Personhood rules out differences in roles.

BOOK - Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality by Rebecca Merrill Groothuis

Groothuis says, “We you have that role that women are not to exercise leadership over men it makes women less human.”

She presents this argument in a syllogism:

If the permanent, comprehensive, and ontologically grounded subordination of women is justified, then women are inferior persons.

Women are not inferior persons.

Therefore women’s subordination is not justified.

Submissive roles and inferior personhood is not the same thing:

Example: A child has equal personhood to an adult but still must be submission to the parent.

Example: Jesus was submissive to God the Father.

BOOK - Discovering Biblical Equality (Craig S. Keener & Gordon D. Fee contributes)