Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 06:1 (Spring 2024)
Article: Do Egalitarians Need Safe Spaces?
Author: Denny R. Burk

Eikon 6.1 (Spring 2024) p. 16

Do Egalitarians Need Safe Spaces?

Denny Burk

Denny Burk is President of CBMW

The April 2024 issue of Christianity Today (CT) includes three cover stories addressing ongoing differences between complementarians and egalitarians. Titled “Division of Labor,” the cover asks whether egalitarians and complementarians are really as opposed to one another as people suppose. Inside the magazine, the editors introduce the three authors — Gordan Hugenberger, Dani Treweek, and Gaby Viesca — as “ministry leaders” who “offer better ways forward for all schools of thought on women’s roles in the church and the home” (3).

In an editorial, executive editor Joy Allmond says that their coverage offers a “third way” between egalitarianism and complementarianism — a kind of truce between the two sides (7).1 Allmond says that the magazine’s approach to egalitarianism and complementarianism is in keeping with the vision of CT’s founder Billy Graham, who “envisioned a convening point for Christians who don’t belong in progressive settings or fundamentalist contexts but who long to link arms with other sojourners somewhere in between” (7).

Eikon 6.1 (Spring 2024) p. 17

The editors are aiming high with this issue, but sadly the effort is long on good intentions but short on execution. Even though the aim is to be above the fray, the authors of the cover stories are primarily egalitarian, and their egalitarianism is presumed at almost every turn. Even the lone complementarian contributor — Dani Treweek — is so dissatisfied with the state of complementarianism that she wonders aloud whether she will call herself a complementarian anymore (48).2 Treweek’s reticence about her own view is in stark contrast to the two egalitarian articles, one of which makes a biblical case against there being any restrictions on women in ministry (Hugenberger)3 and another which is a kind of “how-to guide” on transforming a complementarian church into an egalitarian one (Viesca).4 The result is not above the fray but a lopsided presentation in favor of the egalitarian view.

That is why the editors of Eikon thought it would be useful for us to offer some feedback to the two egalitarian cover stories, as well as to one additional piece that claims Mary Magdalene was “The First Apostle.”5

Three Egalitarian Pitfalls

My aim in this essay is to engage criti...