Editorial -- By: Peter R. Schemm, Jr.

Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 12:2 (Fall 2007)
Article: Editorial
Author: Peter R. Schemm, Jr.


Editorial

Peter R. Schemm, Jr.

Editor, Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Dean, Southeastern College at Wake Forest

Associate Professor of Christian Theology

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Wake Forest, North Carolina

In December 1987, a group of evangelical leaders met in a town in Massachusetts to compose a list of affirmations on biblical manhood and womanhood that would serve as the official statement of beliefs for a newly formed ministry. Today that statement is known as the “Danvers Statement,” named after the New England town of origin. It has been the guiding theological statement of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) for the past twenty years. Local churches, denominations, and organizations have adopted the Danvers Statement as a part of their confessional framework or used it as a guide to compose their own position statements. My own school, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, affirms the Danvers Statement as a guiding confessional document in a time and culture in which these biblical principles are widely rejected yet sorely needed.

In recognition of this twentieth anniversary of CBMW and the Danvers Statement, we offer this issue of JBMW to present a modest assessment of the evangelical community on the gender debate. Confusion and disagreement over the role relationships of men and women in the home and in the church has by no means abated over the last two decades. As Bruce A. Ware has written in this issue,

It is fair to say that our culture despises the traditional Christian

understanding of gender roles. It is no wonder, therefore, that enormous pressure is placed on Christians, particularly Christian leaders, to make concessions so that the resulting “Christian” stance adapts into one that is less offensive to the modern Weltanschauung.

How are evangelicals holding up under this pressure? While the following pages only scratch the surface in terms of appraising the evangelical world, I believe our contributors demonstrate reason for both encouragement and concern.

Jason Duesing and Thomas White begin with an evaluation of the Southern Baptist Convention. An unprecedented conservative resurgence beginning in the 1980s has moved this largest U.S. Protestant denomination from a slide toward liberalism to a place of biblical fidelity. Recent years have seen the denomination take a strong public stance, including the addition of complementarian statements to its confessional document. Given its size and influence, knowing the state of the gender debate in the SBC is ...

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