Have you ever wondered why, when a friend announces they’re expecting a child, your first thought is, “Will it be a boy or girl?” Granted, gender is the most obvious distinction noted in a newborn, but we seem to ask the question as if there is an essential quality to gender, as if biology is destiny. Can we really predict a person’s identity or scope of service based on their maleness or femaleness? Some would say yes.

Those who believe that gender is the most important aspect of personhood are called “gender essentialists.” For them, maleness or femaleness is an attribute that shapes the fundamental meaning and purpose of life—a view that, sadly, drives gender hierarchy in the world and also in the church. Significantly, gender essentialism is not a biblical idea. It arises from Greek philosophy.

Aristotle argued that there is an essential property or attribute that distinguishes all things, apart from which a thing would not be itself. For gender essentialists, men and women possess a fundamentally different essence—which is fixed and unchangeable—that gives rise to their distinct identity and destiny. Is gender essentialism biblical?

Related: 5 Women of the Early Church You Should Know

Scripture points to a “human essentialism, ” which is not associated with gender. The fixed and unchangeable essence of humankind is that both male and female are created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–28)! And, to bear God’s image is an identity with a purpose: both Adam and Eve share authority in caring for the world. Scripture emphasizes not the differences between Adam and Eve but their unity and oneness. They share a physical substance, because Eve comes from Adam’s body. They also share God’s image, an essence that imparts a purpose—caring for the garden with shared authority and ruling over the animals, not over each other!

Sin does not rupture the shared essence and identity of humanity (God’s image in man and woman); sadly, however, it does rupture their purpose—their shared authority (Gen. 3:16). To limit women’s authority obscures their real identity, fueling a gender essentialist mentality. But Adam’s rule over Eve was not God’s original design. A result of sin, patriarchy opposes and diminishes the identity and purpose of females.

Despite sin, Genesis 3 also teaches that a redeemer will be born of a woman and will reconcile us to God and to one another. Though Eve came out of Adam’s body, the second Adam, Jesus, comes through Mary. Just as Eve shared authority with Adam, Jesus—the second Adam—not only affirms women’s spiritual authority, but also consistently opposes cultural and religious patriarchy in his teachings and practices. When a woman called out to Jesus, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you, ” Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:27–28). A woman’s identity resides not in her gender, but in her response to God, and this becomes the standard for all members of Christ’s new covenant. Women are now daughters of Abraham (Luke 13:16), a phrase first used by Jesus to welcome women’s full authority within his New Creation project. Sitting at Christ’s feet, women became disciples, evangelists, and teachers. Women also witnessed every miracle marking Christ’s messianic mission. Women are the first to meet the risen Lord, and interestingly, do so in a garden as a new world dawns (see N.T. Wright,  The Challenge of Easter).

Strikingly, the events of Easter parallel the creation account in Genesis. Just as God breathed life into our parents in Eden and gave them authority to care for the world, the resurrected Jesus appears to Mary and the other disciples and grants them spiritual authority to forgive and retain sin (John 20:18–23). Renewal in Christ is an identity with a purpose: to exercise spiritual authority equally, as male and female, just as our parents did in Eden.

Also by Mimi: “Women Should Remain Silent”?

Paul offers a theological rationale for women’s shared authority, which he explains throughout his epistles but summarizes in Galatians 3:27–29. Our identity in Christ, not our gender, shapes our relationships in the church. Greeks, slaves, and women inherit a new identity not of shame and subjugation but of liberation, dignity, and equality. Paul builds the church beside women teachers, evangelists, prophets, a deacon, and an apostle.

In Christ we are made strong where the old creation had become weak, because the gift is not like the curse (Rom. 5:15). Remade in Jesus, we become equal agents of Christ and partners of reconciliation, serving by giftedness, not by gender. Our identity is not in our gender, but in our union with Christ, made possible through Calvary. May we glory only in the cross.

WATCH: Mimi Haddad on RLC TV with Tony and Shane

I love seeing my name in headlines. I suppose that makes me well, decidedly human. I love being loved. I relish being included, mentioned, cited, and most of all, seeing me everywhere! But, really, is that what this is all about—is this becoming more like Jesus? Yet, it happens over and over again. Maybe I’m just now getting the point. Here is what I mean.

I had to smile this week, when a Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) staff member appeared in my office like the angel Gabriel announcing the good news. “Oh thou, blessed among women, you have been named on the Rachel Held Evans’s “101 Christian Women Speakers’ list.” My first thought was, “Well, that’s better than a PhD from England’s best, right?”

My second thought belonged perhaps to “my better self, ” as I remembered walking the cold windy streets of Philadelphia last winter, back and forth from my hotel to the lecture halls of a conference focused on justice. As one of the speakers, I was thankful to have a platform for CBE’s mission—to dismantle patriarchy as a biblical ideal. Yet, as I navigated the frosty streets of Philly, I was struck by an unbearable contrast between the techie cool of accomplished justice speakers and the dull and pedestrian manner of those working Philly’s inner-city churches. Beaten down by the arduous challenge of running small, barely sustainable nonprofits, these faithful giants of Christ were anything but cool. Yet, day after day these nameless, fameless leaders ran homeless shelters, food banks, immigrant offices, and children’s services, completely oblivious to the marketing machinery driving a conference on justice down the street—a conference where they may never speak, and where I treasured my moment in the sun. “Had they even heard of it?” I wondered.

Yet, their sandals I am not worthy to touch!

But, I suspect that heaven’s banquet will be filled with such guests, served by Christ himself who said, “When you did this to the least of them (even as no one noticed) you did it as to me.” “Enter and receive your reward, ” he will say. “Though you were nameless on earth, and while few celebrated your work, yet you were fiercely faithful. Enter my glory, for it is such as you that my kingdom awaits.”

How thankful I am for Rachel’s advocacy that promotes women speakers who are, too often, systematically excluded from Christian events. I thoroughly endorse and respect her goal. Yet, I also recognize the eternal and invisible power of the marginalized, like those I met in Philly, and like the women leaders we meet in Scripture who are also systematically overlooked.

Ignored though they are, they can—and should—be our truest mentors!

From these women we learn perseverance; from them we observe fierce initiative and boundless faith; because of them we discover Christ’s impartial welcome, love, omnipotence and justice. Their example helps us become truer to goals that are eternal. Of them the writer of Hebrews (possibly Priscilla) said: “Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith, ” (Hebrews 13:7). And, as Paul also said,

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

The stewardship we give words is a moral responsibility that either furthers or diminishes the purposes of Christ and the cause of justice, truth, and love of neighbor. Hence, precision with words is integral to our work as egalitarians. The meticulous use of language is, in my opinion, at the core of the TNIV debate, which is perhaps one reason the debate over accuracy in Bible translation has been so heated.

Using words accurately is challenging, not only because language is living—it is always changing—but also because of the effort required to give words their real meaning, when personal gain is always a temptation. Chandler McEntyre notes in her recent Christianity Today article, “The practice of precision requires not only attentiveness and effort: it may also require the courage to afflict the comfortable and, consequently, tolerate their resentment. The practice of precision is a spiritual discipline that requires courage. Precision is an aspect of the ‘renewal of mind’ that Paul commends.”

To be renewed in mind is to use language accurately and in ways that impart dignity and respect to all people. Here is one example. During the Civil Rights movement, men of color, regardless of their age, were referred to as “boys” while adult white males were referred to as “men.” Adult females have encountered the same hurdle in that they are often referred to as “girls, ” when in fact they are adults and therefore women. And, of course in Bible translation and every language, when the context includes women what prevents us from making their gender visible? For example, in Romans 3:28 Paul said that an “anthropos is justified by faith.” The Greek word anthropos means “person” (not man) in this context, and so most translations read, “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law (Rom. 3:28, NRSV). Certainly, we want all readers to understand that both men and women are saved by faith in Christ which is why the biblical author selected a gender-accurate term.

In the same way, candy is not nutritious food, nor are adult men boys, nor are women men. Let us use language accurately as a spiritual discipline and a form of moral integrity that reveals the love of God, the fruit of Calvary, and the stewardship of the gospel.

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Mimi Haddad is President of Christians for Biblical Equality

Many of us were raised in churches that taught that women should be silent in the church because of the teachings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:34. When we read the passage, sure enough, we see the following words on the pages of the Bible: “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak…” “If women want to inquire about something, ” Paul continues in verse 35, “they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.”

It is easy to read a passage like this in a literal way and miss the point Paul is making. After all, we know that there were women in scripture who spoke, particularly women prophets in this very church (1 Corinthians 11:5).

In fact, Paul exhorts all Christians in Corinth to seek the gift of prophecy (14:1). Given this apparent discrepancy, we must take a closer look at Paul’s intention for the church in Corinth.

Corinth was one of the most wealthy and decadent cities in the ancient world. In it was the temple of Aphrodite—a temple that boasted of 1, 000 prostitutes. Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, written about 55 C.E., reveals a troubled church. Writing from Ephesus, Paul sets out to address specific problems in the church, including divided loyalties (1:10ff, 3:4ff, 6:1-11); sexual immorality (5:1-5, 5:9-11, 6:12-19, 10:7-11); drunkenness (11:21); food sacrificed to idols (8:4ff, 10:14ff); and disorder and confusion during teaching and worship (14:23ff).

In the context of these troubles, Paul asks women worshipping in the Corinthian church to cover their heads and refrain from asking their husbands questions during worship (11:5-6, 10, 13-15, 14:34). Clearly, Paul’s instruction to women appears at the end of his exhortation to teach the gospel in an orderly way, so others might hear and understand (14:1-36). Paul’s primary concern here is evangelism. The gospel is best taught in an orderly atmosphere. To maximize learning for all people, Paul insists upon order in worship which consumes Paul’s thoughts in chapter 14. Women and men sat in different parts of the synagogue, so for women to ask questions of their husbands would disrupt the entire assembly. For this reason, married women would need to ask questions of their husbands at home. The trouble was not with women speaking generally, but with their choice to disrupt worship specifically. After all, three chapters earlier (in chapter 11) Paul tells women how to dress when speaking in public (with covered heads), and their voices (speaking to their husbands during worship) were not to disrupt others from hearing the gospel. This passage addresses a specific problem in Corinth and is not to be universal in application.

Another example of Paul’s insistence on order in worship concerns the issue of speaking in tongues noted in 1 Corinthians 14. Though Paul favors prophecy over speaking in tongues (14:5, 9, 18-19, 32-33), he exhorts others to speak in tongues as he does. Yet, he limits the expression of tongues when it contributes to disorder that impedes the gospel. Similarly, though Paul supports women speaking in church (11:5), he requests their silence when their freedom to speak proves a distraction to the gospel. Paul’s highest priority is the gospel.

Though Paul asks women to remain silent when their voices contributed to disorderly worship, this injunction does not limit their voices in all places at all times. Remember, women were prominent as prophets in both the Old Testament (Numbers 12:1-16, Judges 4:4-5, 5:7, 2 Kings 22:14) and the New Testament. Women prophets were active at Pentecost (Acts 2:17), Phillip had four prophesying daughters (Acts 21:9), and there were women prophets mentioned in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:5). Paul exhorts all Christians in Corinth to seek the gift of prophecy. The gift of prophecy was given to men as well as women. Women and men may speak in churches today as long as their voices do not distract those who need to hear the gospel!

Women have preached the good news since Easter morning. Let’s not silence women as they work in partnership with men, advancing the Great Commission.

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Mimi Haddad is the President of Christians for Biblical Equality

Standing amid the countless wonders of Eden, Adam’s aloneness is the only “not good” in a perfect world. Among the many astonishing animals, Adam cannot find a suitable companion. What is missing?

Adam needs a creature like himself, made of his substance—a woman. Notice he recognizes her immediately. “At last! This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23). Adam declares their shared origins with these words, “I will call you woman because you came from my body.” Scripture emphasizes not their differences but their likeness to each other! They share a metaphysical substance because they are both created in God’s image. They also share a physical being, because Eve comes from Adam’s body. In this oneness, they are then given a common commission—to exercise authority together in caring for and being fruitful in the world (Gen. 1:27-31). Their shared ontology (being) reveals a shared teleology (purpose). Rank, authority, and hierarchy are unnecessary for those who share the same substance and purpose.

Notice the apostle Paul makes a similar point when addressing ministry within the body of Christ. Those who share in a spiritual rebirth are inaugurated as equal members of Christ’s body—the church. Through Christ, God is building a New Covenant people, with Jesus as head, and you and me as joint heirs. Slaves, Gentiles, and women serve equally with free people, Jews, and men in the purposes for which God has called and gifted them, because they too are born of the same Spirit. Rank, authority, and hierarchy are unnecessary among those born of the same substance—the Spirit.

Likewise, in his teaching on marriage, Paul calls husbands to love their wives as they love their own bodies. They share the same substance! Ten times Paul asks husbands to love their wives, encouraging the tender empathy distinctive of a one-flesh relationship. Just as all Christians submit to one another (Eph. 5:21) because they are born of the same Spirit, husbands and wives submit to one another as one flesh. Husbands are to nurture and love their wives, because her body is his, and his body is hers (a point Paul also stresses in 1 Cor. 7:3-7).

Oneness of substance leads naturally to mutuality, love, and a shared purpose, underscored in the early chapters of Genesis and in Paul’s teachings on redeemed relationships among Christians. While some wish to ascribe authority and rule to male headship in marriage, to do so misses Paul’s point, beginning with Ephesians 5:21. Just as Christ is head of the church, husbands also have an opportunity to imitate Christ, who came not to rule, but to serve, and lay down his life to serve and love others.

In Christ, husbands now exalt with Adam, “This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” Authority, rank, and hierarchy are not only unnecessary among those who are born of the Spirit, but they are also inconsistent with the very nature of a one-flesh union.

This column is an excerpt of an article of the same title that appeared in the most recent issue of CBE’s Mutuality magazine, on “Headship.”

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Mimi Haddad is president of Christians for Biblical Equality

Jenell Williams Paris, in her recent lecture at CBE, documents this phenomenon thoroughly. The trouble is, we set up specific gender expectations for life — expectations real people have difficulty fulfilling.

Moreover, these gender expectations can encourage us to pursue service in the church based on our gender, an idea inconsistent with the Bible(see the article by social scientist Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen in Women, Ministry and the Gospel, edited by Mark Husbands and Timothy Larsen). Let’s consider briefly what Paul has to say on this subject in 1 Corinthians 12.

Unlike Christian literature that advances different spheres for perceived human difference, Paul does exactly the opposite. Reminding us that it is the Spirit that gifts individuals for the common good (1 Cor. 12:7), Paul also points to the Spirit as the means through which our human differences are brought together in a functional harmony that creates strength and fruitful ministry.

Unlike first-century culture where ethnicity, class, and gender divided people, in Christ’s new covenant community the Spirit levels a death-blow to cultural prejudices. Whereas Gentiles, slaves, and women would expect barriers to positions of leadership in secular culture, scripture tells us that through God’s Spirit the body of Christ actually functions better and more effectively because of our cultural differences.

What Paul is doing is radically counter-cultural. While human difference in the world creates exclusion and oppression, difference is brought into harmony by the Spirit, making us effective through our interdependence. Using the body metaphor to emphasize our functional interdependence Paul asks, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?…if all were a single member, where would the body be?” No, Paul claims! That is why the body of Christ is not comprised of only feet, or only hands, or only eyes. Rather, Paul says that “God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (1 Cor. 20:18) and not as we might expect.

After establishing the value of difference working harmoniously within the body of Christ, Paul quickly adds that God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, etc. Notice that he does not cite gender, ethnicity, or class requirements to service as apostles, prophets, or teachers. To do so would undermine the argument he has just made — that in the body of Christ our social differences are made into a functional strength through the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore we observe women, slaves, and Gentiles who serve the body of Christ worthily and powerfully as apostles (Rom. 16:7), prophets (Acts 2:17, Acts 21:9, 1 Cor. 11:5), and as teachers (Priscilla and Aquila — Acts 18:26).

Let us respond to the teaching of scripture. In the body of Christ, God’s Spirit delights in bringing together in functional strength individuals who are different. While culture — even church culture — creates divisions based on difference, and while boys are told to be warriors and leaders, if God gifts our daughters as soldiers and as pioneers in fields like missions, medicine, or theology, why would we impede the work of God’s Spirit? To confuse our cultural preferences with biblical absolutes is to weaken the body of Christ. Our spiritual gifts are not given according to gender, but according to the pleasure of God’s Spirit — who makes us strong through our differences

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Mimi Haddad is president of Christians for Biblical Equality

What is more, when communities extend females equal authority in decision making and resources to develop their abilities, this lowers female-abuse. It also raises the economic stability within their communities. NGOS’ call this the girl effect. Christians might call this the ezer effect, because in the early chapters of Genesis the Bible suggests that females are created to provide vital help—a fact noted in Genesis 2:18. According to the scholar R. David Freedman, the Hebrew word used to describe woman’s help (ezer) arises from two Hebrew roots that mean “to rescue, to save, ” and “to be strong.” Ezer is found twenty-one times in the Old Testament. Of these references, fourteen are used for God, and four refer to military rescue. Perhaps the most familiar of these uses is Psalm 121:1-2 where ezer is used for God’s rescue of Israel: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” God created woman to provide not inferior but strong rescue.

Throughout Scripture women are never depicted as inferior but as equal to males in every significant way. Males and females are:

• Equally created in God’s image.
• Equally called to share authority in caring for the earth and in being fruitful.
• Equally responsible for and equally distorted by sin.
• Equally redeemed by Christ and equally gifted by the Holy Spirit.
• Equally held accountable for using their gifts in service to others.

Despite numerous examples of female rescue and leadership throughout Scripture and church history, church leaders have continually offered a patriarchal evaluation of the female gender as a whole. Consider the following examples:

• Irenaeus (130–202 A.D.)  “Both nature and the law place the woman in a subordinate condition to the man”
• Augustine (354–430) “Nor can it be doubted, that it is more consonant with the order of nature that men should bear rule over women, than women over men.”
• Chrysostom (347–407) “The woman taught once, and ruined all. On this account …let her not teach… for the sex is weak and fickle…”
• John Calvin (1509-1564) In his commentary on Timothy said that women are “not to assume authority over the man… it is not permitted by their condition.”
• John Knox (1514-1572) “Nature, I say, does paint [women] forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish; and experience has declared them to be inconstant, variable, cruel…  Since flesh is subordinate to spirit, a woman’s place is beneath man’s.”
• Mark Driscoll (a popular pastor of Mars Hill, a mega church in Seattle) wrote:

…when it comes to leading in the church, women are unfit because they are more gullible and easier to deceive than men. … women who fail to trust [Paul’s] instruction … are much like their mother Eve. . . Before you get all emotional like a woman in hearing this, please consider the content of the women’s magazines at your local grocery store that encourages liberated women in our day to watch porno with their boyfriends, master oral sex for men who have no intention of marrying them…– and ask yourself if it doesn’t look like the Serpent is still trolling the garden and that the daughters of Eve aren’t gullible in pronouncing progress, liberation, and equality.

Do ideas like these, that devalue females at the level of being, have consequences? According to two prominent Christian missionaries, Katharine Bushnell (1856-1946) and Josephine Butler (1828-1906), the proliferation of the sexual slave industry will never end until Christians oppose patriarchy in their ranks. After infiltrating brothels established by the British army in India, Bushnell discovered first-hand the abuses females suffered when abused by British soldiers. After years of working to free abused women around the world, Butler and Bushnell began to see that the global abuse of women was inseparable from a devaluation of females posited by Christian faith. Bushnell argued that the abuse of women will not be overcome as long as “the subordination of woman to man was taught within the body of Christians.” Butler and Bushnell agreed that:

Just so long as men imagine that a system of caste is taught in the Word of God, and that they belong to the upper caste while women are of the lower caste; and just so long as they believe that mere flesh—fate—determines the caste to which one belongs; and just so long as they believe that…Genesis 3:16 [teaches] “thy desire shall be for thy husband, and he shall rule over you”…the destruction of young women into a prostitute class [will] continue.

But place Christian women where God intends them to stand, on a plane of full equality with men in the church and home, where their faculties, their will, their consciences are controlled only by the God who made man and woman equal by creation…then the world will become a much purer [place] than it is today. . .(Katharine Bushnell, Dr. Katharine Bushnell: A Brief Sketch of her Life Work, (Hertford, England: Rose and Sons, Salisbury Square, date of publication unknown), pp. 13-14.)

Bushnell’s work among abused women gave her an opportunity to notice the link between abuse and the presumed inferiority of women, promoted by all religious and philosophical traditions, including Christianity. Like Katharine Bushnell and other egalitarians from the past several centuries, Christians today show how Scripture opposes patriarchy and the flawed view that women are inferior to, and in need of, male authority.

Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) exists to challenge patriarchy within the ranks of our own Christian churches. We believe that the Church cannot advance the justice integral to Christ’s kingdom without challenging patriarchy in churches, organizations, and relationships. For this reason, CBE will convene a conference July 29-31 in Seattle, Washington, focused on The conference will answer questions like: Why would God give gifts to women, only to exclude women from using them? Are male-only models of authority biblical? Does male authority lead to abuse?

Featuring four general sessions, panels, and twenty workshops, this three day conference will include Christians serving all over the world. Richard Howell, the General Secretary of the Asia Evangelical Alliance and the Evangelical Fellowship of India, will examine abuse, gender hierarchy, and a biblical response to dominance. MaryKate Morse, Quaker minister, professor, and author of Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space, and Influence, will consider biblical models of leadership that harmonize servant leadership and power. Linguist, scholar, and author of Man and Woman: One in Christ Philip B. Payne will explore the textual evidence for the shared authority between men and women in church and home. Kanyere Eaton, pastor at Fellowship Covenant Church in the Bronx, NY, will address the difficulties African-American women face in their paths to ordination. Conference sessions will also examine pornography, abuse, biblical marriage, women in ministry, singleness, leadership, and grassroots activism.

Scholars, ministry leaders, and laypeople representing many denominations will join us in July from countries throughout Asia, Europe, and the Arab world. Students are participating in large numbers due to CBE’s student paper competition, which gives three students a forum to present original research on the conference theme. CBE is also offering need-based conference scholarships, and students and others are welcome to apply for financial assistance. Conference registration will be open until July 29^th and all are invited to join CBE in Seattle!

CBE is the largest evangelical organization providing biblical resources on the shared authority and service of men and women. CBE sponsors annual conferences, hosts local chapters, runs an online book service, and publishes two award-winning journals and a weekly e-newsletter. CBE’s journals have received more than twenty Evangelical Press Association awards.

For more information, contact us. To register for

Christians for Biblical Equality
122 W Franklin Ave, Suite 218
Minneapolis, MN 55404-2451
Phone: (612) 872-6898
Fax: (612) 872-6891
Email: cbe@cbeinternational.org
Web: cbeinternational.org

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Mimi Haddad is the President of Christians for Biblical Equality

As the following email illustrates, one’s biblical position on gender clearly advances or diminishes the good news of the gospel. Emily, a woman who recently contacted Christians for Biblical Equality, writes:

I had heard the word of God, and I felt moved by much of it …. However, I was held back from this because I was told … Eve [was] really responsible for all sin in the world, and not Adam, even though she didn’t force him to eat the forbidden fruit … I was to be silent in church and women could not hold a position of responsibility. It was as if God had already decided that because I am female there was nothing [God] cared to hear me say. And worst of all was what was to happen if I were to marry. I would become a slave to my husband, obeying his word as if it were the word of God … I left church behind and my faith in the Lord with it. I couldn’t reconcile being part of a religion that had labeled me as inferior from birth.

Emily, like all humans, understands when faith is presented in a way that is illogical or unjust. It is because of people like Emily that many Christians are not only reexamining scripture’s teaching on gender — they are also discovering that the differences between egalitarians and complementarians (those who support a male model of authority) — run deeper than a difference in interpretation or personal preference. Egalitarians and complementarians present differing worldviews, and this is why so many of us challenge gender-hierarchy as God’s ideal.

Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) is devoted to showing individuals like Emily — who have left the church, or who refuse to marry, or who have joined other religions — that scripture does not extend authority to men just because they are male. Rather, leadership and service is the product of God’s gifting, one’s intimacy with God, and one’s moral choices.

In many ways our work as egalitarians resembles that of evangelicals in history who also challenged a defective worldview — one that viewed Africans as destined by God to permanent servitude. Such a mistaken perspective distorts the key elements that shape one’s worldview. These include:

• Knowledge — how we understand truth
• Ontology — the nature and value of being
• Justice or Ethics — moral choices based on knowledge and ontology
• Purpose — our ultimate purpose and destiny

As scholars such as Alan Myatt has observed, a corruption in one area of worldview distorts the others. As slavery proponents insisted that the divine destiny of Africans was servitude (purpose); they also advanced a biblical basis for slavery (knowledge). Individuals of African descent were therefore said to possess an inferior nature (ontology), which is why they must be ruled by others’ (ethics). To redress this flawed worldview, abolitionists had to “put right” all four elements. That is why some early evangelicals challenged slavery with a robust biblicalism (knowledge) that showed how each person is made new in Christ (ontology), and through God’s Spirit, all believers are gifted for service regardless of ethnicity (purpose). This view, in turn, leveled a serious theological challenge to the institution of slavery (ethics). As a more biblical worldview prevailed, slaves were freed and some flooded to the mission field, where their calling and giftedness were evident. Ultimately it became clear that slavery was not a matter of preference or difference in biblical interpretation, it was a worldview with eternal consequences.

In a similar manner, Christian women are often told that their divine destiny is permanent submission to male authority (purpose), a view that, some say, is promoted throughout scripture (knowledge) and one that is rooted in the Trinity itself; established not because of a woman’s character, giftedness or intimacy with Christ, but based solely on gender (ontology). Therefore, women are to obey men, and men are to hold ultimate authority over females in the church and home (ethics). Thankfully, like abolitionists, egalitarians have made their case biblically (knowledge), that women are created as strong partners for men (Gen. 2:20) (ontology), and as such are to exercise a shared dominion with men (Gen. 1:28) (purpose). As women shared leadership and authority on mission fields around the world, it led to one of the largest expanses in all of Christian history — the Golden Era of Missions. As women are given equal authority to make decisions in marriages, this not only leads to happier marriages but also to a lower incidence of abuse (ethics), according to the research of Life Innovations, Inc. As believers embrace a more biblical worldview on gender, we offer a clear image of God to those who have left the church because of prejudice against females that cannot be sustained biblically.

Does the shared leadership and authority of women and men advance a more biblical worldview? Katharine Bushnell observed in 1919 that a consistent interpretation of scripture requires that we assess women’s capacity for service in the same way we assess men’s — not based on the fall — but through our atonement in Christ. To do otherwise does violence to the gospel, to which all of scripture and history point.

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Mimi Haddad is President of Christians for Biblical Equality

Those who are far away are brought closer to God, and at the same time we are also brought closer to one another! Once we were estranged, not only from God, but also from each other, (Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, women and men). But through Christ we receive unity, mutuality, and reconciliation. In fact, Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 that as part of our spiritual rebirth, we are inducted into that new race, that new body of believers with Christ as our head.

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity… He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit (Ephesians 2:15-22, TNIV).

By abolishing the law and its regulations, God through Christ has created a new person, a new anthropos (Ephesians 2:15), where reconciliation is the hallmark of our new life in Jesus. Our reconciliation and newness of life gives us the power to humbly work beside one another as “fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).

As head of the church, Christ brings a peace and reconciliation which, scripture tells us, is built upon the prophets and apostles. How interesting that Paul selects groups (prophets and apostles) which included women within their ranks; from Huldah, Deborah, Miriam, Anna, Philip’s prophesying daughters (Acts 21:9), the prophesying women in Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:5), and those who prophesied at Pentecost, to the female apostle Junia. Women and men are both living stones, equally joined to Christ their head, and together with all ethnicities we become that holy temple, a dwelling “in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). And the Spirit makes us new each day so that we may bring the fragrance of God to others who, like us, are being called to join God’s household.

Friends, throughout history, the gospel of Christ has always been associated with reconciliation. This Easter, let us walk fully in the newness of life that shows the world Christ is risen indeed! Will you join us?

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Mimi Haddad is President of Christians for Biblical Equality (www.cbeinternational.org)