Why “Together for the Gospel” Embraces Complementarianism -- By: J. Ligon Duncan

Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 13:1 (Spring 2008)
Article: Why “Together for the Gospel” Embraces Complementarianism
Author: J. Ligon Duncan


Why “Together for the Gospel” Embraces Complementarianism1

J. Ligon Duncan

Senior Minister
First Presbyterian Church
Jackson, Mississippi

“Together for the Gospel” (T4G) is a consortium of Reformed evangelicals who are committed to a comprehensive recovery and reaffirmation of the biblical Gospel. I am signer of T4G’s initial doctrinal statement of affirmation and denials. Article 16 of our statement consists of a plain affirmation of a complementarian understanding of gender. It reads:

We affirm that the Scripture reveals a pattern of complementary order between men and women, and that this order is itself a testimony to the Gospel, even as it is the gift of our Creator and Redeemer. We also affirm that all Christians are called to service within the body of Christ, and that God has given to both men and women important and strategic roles within the home, the church, and the society. We further affirm that the teaching office of the church is assigned only to those men who are called of God in fulfillment of the biblical teachings and that men are to lead in their homes as husbands and fathers who fear and love God.

We deny that the distinction of roles between men and women revealed in the Bible is evidence of mere cultural conditioning or a manifestation of male oppression or prejudice against women. We also deny that this biblical distinction of roles excludes women from meaningful ministry in Christ’s kingdom. We further deny that any church can confuse these issues without damaging its witness to the Gospel.

Why did I and the others signers of this document include this statement in our doctrinal statement? There are several reasons.

One, the denial of complementarianism undermines the church’s practical embrace of the authority of Scripture (thus eventually and inevitably harming the church’s witness to the Gospel). The gymnastics required to get from “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man,” in the Bible, to “I do allow a woman to teach and to exercise authority over a man” in the actual practice of the local church, are devastating to the functional authority of the Scripture in the life of the people of God.

By the way, this is one reason why I think we just don’t see many strongly inerrantist-egalitarians (meaning: those who hold unwaveringly to inerrancy and also to egalitarianism) in the younger generation of evangelicalism. Many if not most evangelical egalitarians today have significant qualms about inerrancy, and are embracing things like trajectory hermeneutics, etc., to justify their positions. Inerrancy or egalitarianism, one or the o...

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