Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 05:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: Reinterpreting Church History: A Response To Mimi Haddad, “History Matters”
Author: Anne Kennedy

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 10

Reinterpreting Church History: A Response To Mimi Haddad, “History Matters”

Anne Kennedy

Anne Kennedy, MDiv, is the author of Nailed It: 365 Readings for Angry or Worn-Out People, rev. ed. (Square Halo Books, 2020). She blogs about current events and theological trends at Standfirminfaith.com and on her Substack, Demotivations With Anne.

“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future” (11). Thus, quoting George Orwell’s 1984, Mimi Haddad opens the inaugural chapter of the third edition of Discovering Biblical Equality. Women’s voices, she claims, have been silenced throughout Christian history by those “committed to male authority” (11). Their essential contributions for the advancement of the gospel have been “marginalized,” “omitted,” and “devalued,” particularly by modern-day complementarians, especially in theological institutions (11). Haddad leans on Beth Allison Barr’s analysis of courses and

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 11

curricula offered by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to introduce her subject. “Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s biased curriculum,” she writes, “not only damages the credibility of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as a center of higher education, but it reinforces the Southern Baptist Convention’s sexism” (11–12). One of this sexism’s most iconic examples is Paige Patterson, who is reported to have expressed himself happy that an abused woman returned to her abusive husband and there endured yet more abuse (11).1

Rereading Church History

To redress this sexism, Haddad profiles prominent women in church history. Beginning with the early Church martyr, Perpetua, she sketches the biographies of Blandina, Crispina, Syncletica, Macrina the Younger, and St. Paula. She goes on to highlight the most prominent medieval mystics — Hildegard, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna — and notes the remarkable stories of Reformation heroines Argula von Grumbach, Lady Jane Gray, and Margaret of Navarre. The real substance of the chapter, however, is Haddad’s turn to the stories of evangelical Conversionism, Evagelicalism’s Golden Era, and what she calls a period of Activism. The well-known names, to me, of Lottie Moon, Sarah Grimke, Amy Carmichael, and Sojourner Truth are joined by the less well-known Mary Prince, Phoebe Palmer, and Elizabeth Heyrick, among others. In all, Haddad discusses the lives and contributions of thirty-four women, if I have counted correctly.

Haddad’s list is an engaging journey through the well-rehearsed tumults of the modern era that finally settled into th...