Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 31:4 (Autumn 2017)
Article: Book Review "Gender Roles And The People Of God: Rethinking What We Were Taught About Men And Women In The Church" By Alice P. Mathews (Zondervan, 2017)
Author: Dorothy Littell Greco

Book Review
Gender Roles And The People Of God: Rethinking What We Were Taught About Men And Women In The Church
By Alice P. Mathews (Zondervan, 2017)

Dorothy Littell Greco

Dorothy Littell Greco is a photographer, writer, and author of Making Marriage Beautiful (David C. Cook, 2017). She and her husband, Christopher, stand shoulder-to-shoulder as they endeavor to bring the good news to others. They live and work near Boston.

Theologian and author Alice Mathews recently said in a Christianity Today interview with Hannah Anderson, “Satan knows that if he can keep women out of service, in the church and in the world, he will have won an enormous victory.” Mathews’s most recent book, Gender Roles and the People of God, takes back some of the territory gained by the enemy.

According to Mathews, “In many churches and denominations around the world, the subject of how men and women relate in the church has become a third-rail issue.” In other words, engage at your own risk. Perhaps because of this reality, far too many churches and Christian academic institutions seem content to allow a few loud voices to control the conversation. Rather than resigning herself to limited options, Mathews has spent a good portion of her life combing through scripture to determine if exclusionary practices can be supported.

In ch. 1, Dangers of a Misleading Reading, she outlines how readers can critically evaluate biblical texts to discern how cultural mores and personal biases (their own as well as those of the loud voices) may interfere with interpretation. Mathews advocates that readers include the context and “listen to the full testimony of Scripture” rather than plucking certain texts out of context to support a particular interpretation. With that clear metric, she begins a historical overview of patriarchy by asking:

Is the Bible “patriarchal”? If we mean by that question, does the Bible accurately describe the patriarchal societies, beliefs, and actions recorded in the Scripture, the answer is yes. . . . But if we mean, does the Bible endorse the patriarchal culture in which its history and teachings are displayed, the answer is no. This is the difference between what is descriptive and what is prescriptive in the Bible.

Mathews’s perspective is that the creation account reveals complete equality between Adam and Eve without God-ordained hierarchy. She writes, “Eve was not created to serve Adam but to serve with him.” The remaining arguments in Gender Roles and the People of God hinge on this understanding, coupled with her belief that scripture does not support the eternal subordination of Jesus to God the Father.

In the subsequent chapters of Part One, Mathews points to ...