It's one thing when a scripture-quoting theologian/author gets your attention. It's quite another when he opens your eyes, revealing a failed step not only you but entire churches may have taken long ago -- one that is leading you, perhaps quite unwittingly or intentionally, down a road that ends in the denial of biblical authority and gender identity. 

That's what Wayne Grudem has done with his latest work, Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? In it, Grudem, Research Professor of Bible & Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and author/editor of works regarding men's and women's roles in the home and church, as well as how churches might teach those roles, states his position plainly on page one: 

I am concerned that evangelical feminism (also called "egalitarianism") has become a new path by which evangelicals are being drawn into theological liberalism [defined as: "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"]. 

That's a lot at stake from a topic many of us may have thought we'd successfully swept under the rug, explained away socially, navigated around, or, perhaps worse, were completely ignorant of. Dr. Grudem recently sat down with Crosswalk Faith Editor Shawn McEvoy to discuss his book and the ramifications of his argument. 

Crosswalk: Dr. Grudem, why this book, and why now?

Wayne Grudem: This book is really an alarm to the church. It’s saying to evangelical Christians, “You may think that the controversy over men’s and women’s roles doesn’t make much difference to other things in your church life, but in fact, it makes a huge difference.” In this book Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?, I examine and document 25 different kinds of arguments that are used by evangelical feminists to claim that there is no unique leadership role for men in the home or in the church. And in every case I argue that these arguments used by the evangelical feminists undermine or deny the authority of Scripture. So really what is at stake is whether we’ll be subject to and obedient to God’s Word or not.

Some of those arguments are: (1) saying that some parts of Genesis 1-2 are wrong, (2) saying that Paul was wrong in what he wrote about women in the church, (3) saying that some verses on women should not be part of the Bible, (4) saying that our standard for conduct today should not be what the Bible says but our idea of the direction in which we think the Bible was “developing” or changing, (5) saying that a pastor can give women preachers permission to disobey the Bible, (6) saying that personal experience of blessing from women preachers trumps the teaching of Scripture, and (7) making up some special situation that you say a Bible passage was talking about (such as uneducated or noisy women in the ancient world) and then saying the passage doesn’t apply today because we aren’t in that “special situation.” There are 25 such arguments from evangelical feminists that I document in my book. And they all undermine or deny the authority of the Bible.

CW: When you define evangelical feminism, you describe “a movement that claims there are no unique leadership roles for men in marriage or the church.” That’s interesting, in that this definition is obviously not something anti-female, but instead, questions more what we’ve done to male headship as God established it. Can you elaborate more on that idea – God establishing man as the head and woman as a sub-ordinate?

Grudem: That’s an interesting way of summarizing the book, and I think you’ve made a good point. The idea is that with regard to marriage, the Bible teaches that we – men and women – are equal in value in God’s sight. He created us both in His image, as it says in Genesis 1:26-27. But God also gave a leadership role to the husband in the marriage. So Paul can say in Ephesians 5 that wives are to be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. So there is a leadership role for men in marriage. And the whole Church throughout history has believed that except for the last 40  years or so.

In the church, the Bible values and encourages the use of spiritual gifts by men and women alike, and sees us both as equal in value in the church, but the governing and teaching roles that belong to a pastor or elder in a church are restricted to men, according to 1 Timothy 2, and 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1 and other passages.

CW: Then, if subordination does not imply inferiority, why do we tend to think it does?

Grudem: Oh, it’s the culture. Our culture – at least since the 1960s – has had a strong bias against authority, whether it’s the authority of the government or the teacher in a school or the authority of parents, or the authority of God. And that, I think, has an influence on the discussions of authority within marriage (which belongs to a husband), and authority within the church (which belongs to the pastor and elders for the whole church). So that anti-authority trend in the culture is one thing. Another thing probably is the loss of a biblical view that God is the supreme authority over all of life, and all of us are subject – or should be subject – to His authority. That is not dehumanizing. It doesn’t degrade us; it just causes us to fill the role that God made us for.

We see that even in the relationship between the Father and the Son in the Trinity, where the Son is subject to the authority of the Father, but they’re both equally God! So, we really shouldn’t dislike being under authority – when it’s rightly used; I’m not talking about abuse of authority. Something  in our culture has taught us a lie that if you have power over others that’s good, and if you’re under other people’s authority that’s bad. And actually, both are found in the Bible, and when they’re not distorted by sinful patterns of behavior then both things are good, and we should find fulfillment wherever God has placed us.

CW: You are a co-founder of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. From that perspective, what have you observed to be evangelicalism’s most common treatment (or mis-treatment), or interpretation (or mis-interpretation) of verses regarding the role of women in the home or the church, such as those found in 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, and elsewhere?

Grudem: I think still that the most common interpretation is the correct one, and that is that 1 Timothy 2 restricts the role of Bible teaching or governing authority over the assembled church to men, while still – in that very passage – honoring women, and saying it’s right that women learn, as well as men, from the teaching of God’s Word.

And then, in 1 Corinthians 14, I think the growing consensus among many interpreters is that, when Paul says, “As in all the churches of the saints the women should keep silent in the churches (1 Cor. 14:34),” that we have to understand what he is talking about in the context, in the church at Corinth. People with the gift of prophecy were standing up and giving prophecies, and then others were evaluating them (1 Cor. 14:29),  and in that context Paul says that women should not stand up and give spoken judgments against a prophecy that was given, because that’s a governing and protecting role over the entire congregation that is reserved for men. That’s very consistent with 1 Timothy 2. But certainly Paul does not mean that women should be totally silent in that context, because just a bit earlier in 1 Corinthians 11:5, Paul allows women to speak out loud in church to pray, or to give prophecies. Those are not teaching or governing over the whole congregation, but those are other kinds of speech activities, and they are certainly encouraged by Paul.