Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 27:4 (Autumn 2013)
Article: Book Review: "How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership" Edited by Alan F. Johnson (Zondervan, 2010)
Author: Shirley L. Barron

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Book Review: How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership Edited by Alan F. Johnson (Zondervan, 2010)

Shirley L. Barron

Shirley L. Barron holds an MA in biblical studies from Wheaton College (Illinois) and an MD from the University of Kentucky college of Medicine. She has practiced medicine in public health, pathology, and general practice. She is a faculty-mentor for Columbia Evangelical Seminary, Fairview, Washington, teaching Greek and New Testament studies. She has taught Latin at Wheaton college and basic Koinē Greek to interested members of her local church.

Alan Johnson, emeritus professor of New Testament and Christian ethics at Wheaton College (Illinois), has put together autobiographical accounts of twenty-seven evangelical leaders, both men and women, from many denominations. These stories recount journeys from belief in a restrictive role for women to a realization of freedom for women to use all their gifts and callings for God’s kingdom. In many of these accounts, the implications for Christian marriage are brought out: a side-by-side partnership of mutual love and submission, where no one is “boss” and no one needs to dominate.

The book’s intended audience is twofold. First is the lay evangelical Christian who may not know that there are numerous faithful, Bible-believing Christians who believe that subordination of half the human race is wrong, but who may not have heard the many credible, committed evangelicals who have come to understand that faithful adherence to Scripture does not require this restrictive view. The second purpose is to encourage women and men who have come to know that God intends both genders to serve freely in his kingdom and mission.

The contributors have each written a 10 to 15 page account of their own experience, usually starting with childhood memories of their parental families, proceeding to eventual questioning or confusion about gender roles, and then of a searching of Scripture for God’s will in this area, concluding with their realization that the whole sweep of Scripture is toward redemption from the fall and the curses caused by sin and toward freedom (for both genders, all races, and all social conditions).

The contributors come from denominations as varied as Baptist, Plymouth Brethren, Anglican, Mennonite, etc., mostly American, but also Armenian, Swiss, British, and Canadian. Some of the people who contributed to this book are Stuart and Jill Briscoe, Stan Gundry, Tony Campolo, Bill and Lynne Hybels, Ron Sider, Roger Nicole, Alice Mathews, Walter and Olive Fleming Liefeld, Gilbert Bilezikian, Cornelius Plantinga Jr., I. Howard Marshall, John Stackhouse, and the editor himself. Their stories are highly engaging, upbeat, and positive. The writers do not use polemics or blame, but revel in ...

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