This debate between complementarians that the Piper incident has helped highlight has reinforced my growing impression that there are significant differences between the egalitarian and complementarian “sides” in how they approach ‘in house’ differences. Some reflections on this is my fifth and final observation and will take up the whole of these last two posts. (more…)

The third observation is that those of us who disagree with what (at least seems to be) Piper’s approach of linking what men and women should be doing to claims that men more naturally do some things well and women more naturally do other things well need to realize that if that is Piper’s view then that is arguably also the basic way in which pre-feminist Christians for 2000 years explained the logic behind the relevant Biblical commands. (more…)

The second observation is that the debate over the place of gender in public ministry and the husband/wife relationship is more complex than it can appear on the surface. As I suggested in my previous series, underneath the term ‘egalitarian’ there are a huge number of mutually contradictory positions held for a wide range of mutually contradictory reasons. Underneath the term ‘complementarian’ appears to be a smaller number of positions but which seem to be increasingly concerned to differentiate themselves from each other and which are about as quick to shoot each other for being unbiblical as they are for apparently being egalitarianism. (more…)

In case you missed it, there was a minor ripple through the evangelical portion of the web recently. John Piper was reported to have declared that Christianity has a masculine feel in a talk he gave on J.C. Ryle’s ministry to a men’s conference on ministry. Blogs and Facebook lit up as Christians reacted—and as is usual with the social media, with those unhappy with the statement responding first, and then others reacting to the first group’s stated disagreement with Piper. (more…)