Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 07:2 (Fall 2025)
Article: A History Of Complementarianism
Author: Claire Smith

Eikon 7.2 (Fall 2025) p. 86

A History Of Complementarianism

Claire Smith

Claire Smith Lives In Sydney, Australia, With Her Husband Rob. She Holds A Phd In New Testament From The University Of Western Sydney/Moore Theological College. Her Books Include God’s Good Design: What The Bible Really Says About Men And Women And The Appearing Of God Our Savior: A Theology Of 1 And 2 Timothy And Titus.

I. Why “Complementarianism” Needed A Name1

On a December morning in 1988 at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, held that year at Wheaton College, in Wheaton, Illinois, a group of men and women who had been meeting in secret and on an invitation-only basis for two years, went public. They announced the formation of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) to the conference, handed out brochures to attendees, and held a press conference, although, as it happened, Christianity Today was the only media outlet that turned up.2

Wayne Grudem, one of the key members of the group, recalls that earlier that same day in 1988, at a breakfast meeting of the CBMW in the main dining room of the Hilton hotel,3 they coined the term ‘complementarian’ as a one-word representation of their viewpoint. Those at the breakfast included John Piper, Wayne Grudem, Bruce Waltke, Wayne House, and Kent Hughes.

The new term was shorthand for the biblical vision of the sexes that a wider group of men and women had been working to

Eikon 7.2 (Fall 2025) p. 87

articulate since 1986 (more on that year below). That vision had been finalized a year earlier in a meeting on December 2–3, 1987, at the Sheraton Hotel in the city of Danvers, Massachusetts, where the ETS conference was being held. They called this statement, “The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” (after the city in which they were meeting).4

Almost forty years on, the Danvers Statement has stood the test of time as a summary of the complementarian position. It opens with ten points of rationale, lists five purposes it hopes will be pursued, and ends with ten affirmations on the equality and distinctions of men and women before God.5

From its inception then, as Denny Burk, current President of CBMW, explains, “Complementarianism was not first and foremost a sociological descriptor or movement. Nor was it describing an ethos or a set of extrabiblical stereotype...