Book Review: Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism -- By: Kevin Giles

Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 22:3 (Summer 2008)
Article: Book Review: Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism
Author: Kevin Giles


Book Review: Evangelical Feminism:
A New Path to Liberalism

Wayne Grudem

(Crossway, 2006)

Reviewed by

Kevin Giles

KEVIN GILES has served as an Anglican minister for thirty-eight years. He is the author of many books and articles. In 2006, he resigned as Vicar of St. Michaels, North Carlton, Diocese of Melbourne, and now concentrates on writing and teaching. He shares a teaching ministry with his wife, Lynley, a marriage educator and counselor.

Evangelical Feminism is written to further a cause that has consumed the author’s working life: the permanent subordination of women as God’s ideal. It judges all fellow evangelicals who disagree on this matter to be “theological liberals,” or implicit liberals. The fundamental seismic fault in the author’s thinking is that he cannot differentiate between the interpretation of Scripture and Scripture itself. For him, if anyone rejects his interpretation of the key texts on which he and other hierarchists base their case for the permanent subordination of women, then that believer is by definition rejecting the authority of Scripture. What this means is that the methodological challenge to interpret Scripture rightly in its given historical and cultural context and to apply what is said rightly in another historical and cultural context is solved by assuming and asserting that “my interpretation” tells you exactly what the Bible says. When an author claims that one’s interpretation of God’s word is God’s word without any caveats, then, by implication, one is claiming to speak for God. The author is asserting that what he says the Bible says is what God says, and, thus, if you disagree with him, you are disagreeing with God. This is, of course, how the Roman Catholic Church solves the challenge of interpretation. In the end, it is the Pope who tells the faithful what the Bible is saying on any controversial matter. In both the Protestant and the Catholic versions of this methodology, inerrancy lies not in the Scriptures, but in the interpretation given by someone claiming to speak for God.

As long as hierarchists argue in this way, there is no possibility of finding common ground on the question of the status and ministry of women. To begin an honest and open dialogue, we have to agree that the issue is not the authority of Scripture, but how Scripture is to be interpreted and applied. Evangelical egalitarians do not reject the authority of Scripture; they reject an interpretation of the Scriptures that suggests that God’s unchanging ideal is the subordination of women.

There are two contrasting ways of interpreting Scripture to prove the subordination of women. First, there is the historic interpretation o...

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