Wayne Grudem's Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006) is a welcome addition to a plethora of scholarship that has been done in the area of biblical gender studies in recent years. However, this book is quite different than previous work in this area. In Evangelical Feminism, Grudem sounds a clear and explicit warning to his evangelical feminist friends: the presuppositions upon which evangelical feminism are founded necessarily lead to liberalism.
Grudem's approach in proving such a thesis is to show the connections between evangelical feminism and liberalism in the local church in recent decades (Part 1: 23-30); the views of evangelical feminists that undermine the authority of the Bible (Part 2: 31-150); and the views of evangelical feminists that are based upon "untruthful or unsubstantiated claims" (Part 3: 151-220). In the last section of the book, Grudem lays out the direction where evangelical feminism is taking evangelical Christians, which he contends is a slippery slope toward liberalism (Part 4: 221-263). Ultimately at stake in the gender debate, according to Grudem, is Holy Scripture itself (261-263).
The strengths of this book are its ample documentation, both in terms of Scripture references and contemporary scholarship; its accessibility and usefulness for any Christian who is either quite familiar with the current complementarian/patriarchal-egalitarian debate or any believer in Christ who is just coming into contact with the discussion, and who would like to know more; and the tone in which Grudem writes, which is clear and forthright. Grudem does not caricaturize evangelical feminists, but rather deals with the best of their scholarship, showing it to be lacking when viewed up against the biblical text.
As a side note, many of the criticisms in the review below from "Kidmugg" are guilty of misleading his readers, the very thing he accuses Grudem of doing in this book. For example, Grudem clearly does not claim that there have "only been discrepancy on gender readings of the Biblical texts since the 1970's," as he deals with feminist revisions of orthodox teachings before this time, and his point in this regard is to show that such a reading of the text comes from liberal/unorthodox presuppositions (on which the 19th century or Quaker arguments that Kidmugg only generally references are surely built). Grudem also does not present his so-called "demanded reading of the text" to show that Jesus and Paul could not have served as elders, since they had not wives. In fact, he references his argument against such a view, a view he states "very few" Christians hold today (p. 96, n. 18). In addition, to claim that a weakness of the book is Grudem's presupposition of sola Scriptura, when the book is clearly and explicitly written for evangelical Christians (who themselves hold to sola Scriptura), seems a bit misguided. More criticisms of Kidmugg's review are warranted, but that is not the purpose here.
The book, Evangelical Feminism does an excellent job of showing the liberal outworking of the presuppositions upon which evangelical feminism is based. In fact, some of Grudem's conclusions are so convincing and powerful that perhaps future editions and revisions of this book will contain a different subtitle than the one it has currently. For it may be true that Grudem is wrong when he asserts that evangelical feminism is the new path to liberalism. Surely Grudem and his fellow complementarians would admit as much.
Instead, it may be time for orthodox Christians to continue to examine anew the presuppositions upon which evangelical feminism is built. Perhaps this movement has so altered the truths of Scripture that there is little semblance of the biblical evangel to which Christians have witnessed for nearly two millennia.
At that point, Christians may say stop and say, "Evangelical feminism is no slippery slope toward liberalism. Rather, the slope has already been slid."
