Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 36:1 (Winter 2022)
Article: Come Let Us Reason Together: Evangelical Theological Society 2021 Annual Meeting Recap
Author: Mimi Haddad

PP 36:1 (Winter 2022) p. 18

Come Let Us Reason Together: Evangelical Theological Society 2021 Annual Meeting Recap

Mimi Haddad

Mimi Haddad is President of CBE International.

There was something different at this year’s Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) Annual Meeting. I could feel it almost immediately. Rather than a tightening in my shoulders as ETS launched, they relaxed.

Day One: A Hopeful Start

Among the first to arrive, CBE’s team Liz Beyer, Kim Dickson, and I began assembling our booth, setting up banners, article racks, and tables, and loading these with journals, CDs, articles, and books. A few feet away, our ministry partners—InterVarsity Press (IVP)—smiled as they also piled new titles on their enormous surface areas. So began a synergy of priorities impossible to miss, especially elevating the leadership of women at ethnic and racial margins. With IVP’s team we also shared new titles and book ideas, and hurriedly restocked copies of the new edition of Discovering Biblical Equality (DBE).

Day Two: Come Let us Reason Together

Friends met at CBE’s booth to join the CBE-IVP book launch luncheon with many ETS colleagues. Egalitarian and complementarian faculty and students were eager to hear more about the inspiration behind the new edition of DBE. Craig Keener, myself, Ron Pierce, and Juliany González Nieves discussed the vision that guided our contributions. Expressions of appreciation replaced fears and caricatures of former days as a spirit of “come let us reason together” hummed throughout our two-hour gathering. Hopes for fresh conversations saturated the air as I dashed to moderate papers at Evangelicals and Women—a section of ETS.

Arriving early, it was quickly apparent we needed a room twice the size. Many attendees sat on the floor or stood along the walls, with others waiting in the hall for a seat. Four papers were presented, beginning with David R. Wallace’s “Paul’s Instruction in 1 Timothy 3:8–13: Men and Women Deacons?” Challenges to reading 1 Timothy 3:8–13 as “wives of deacons” were prominent not only given the evidence of Phoebe the deacon cited in Romans 16:1–3, but also in light of Paul’s pattern of calling leaders to controvert cultural dominance. Pushback to complementarian rhetoric reached a summit with John McKinley’s paper, “Seven Things that Need Revision in Complementarianism.” Unsurprisingly, complementarians challenged his ideas—though they were well-defended, even unassailable. I deeply admired his courage, humility, and spiritual discipline as he admitted how God had been pushing...