Customer Reviews

Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian Leadership

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Normally, when a book has 26 reviews, I am content to let writing a review pass. However, this one is special. I was dragged into the gender debates a few months ago kicking and screaming. I am a seminary graduate, though I don't pastor. The church leaders sought my opinion because of my training and experience. Hence, I got introduced to the fight. The theological vertigo that I experienced was only surpassed by the vertigo I got when I decided to find the definitive answer to the theories of the second coming, while in seminary.

This book is different. She interacts with both sides. Unlike the shallow belaborings and "interpretations" of the chief spokespeople for both sides, she has obviously read some theology. Although she doesn't flaunt it, she has apparently read the Church Fathers more than she indicates. She is comfortable to go in new directions and respectfully bow and put her hand over her mouth in the presence of mystery. This is something that both sides fail to do. What really impressed me was her handling of the headship subject. This has been a big and heated debate that has drug the Trinity into the fray and sought to confirm various models of hierarchy and equality. She acknowledges the mystery while giving, in my opinion, a very excellent alternative.

Her thinking is called fuzzy in earlier reviews, but I find that difficult to understand. When you are dealing with the immanent Trinity as revealed in the Incarnation, what you can't say is much more extensive than what you know. She says what is appropriate (metaphor, she calls it) and recognizes the limits of knowledge and expression.

This is the one book we need. I wish I had found out about it 4 or 5 books ago. I have left it with an appreciation of what God has done in Creation and Redemption and what my responsibilities are towards my wife as head. Thanks muchly.

I loved this frustrating book, mainly because it challenged me. Our community worked through the issue of women in leadership and found this book an extreme help- I've bought it for my elders/pastors and recommended it to many people.

Sumner, with a high view of scripture, takes both the egalitarians (women can fill any role in the church/no difference whatsoever between the sexes) and the complementarians (women can fill any role in the church but pastor or elder/creation order determines roles) to task. Both sides have much to learn from this book.

Contrary to some reviews, it's not fuzzy. It's simply non-linear. I seriously doubt Sumner would consider herself a "postmodern," but in many ways she writes like one, introducing a subject, moving on to another relevent issue, circling back to the first subject... the book reads like a series of circles, but ultimately gets us where we need to be- a discussion of the biblical texts dealing with women in ministry. It was amazing to realize that something I was reading had been "set up" by something else 2 chapters earlier. I can see how if you want a straight-forward, scholarly approach this would be maddening, but it was one of the things that helped make this book so appealing to me.

This book was instrumental in helping me reassess my position on this issue. If you want a biblical framework for thinking through the issues of headship, women in leadership and interpretation of tough passages like 1 Timothy 2, this is an excellent book.

I require all my students taking "The Role of Women in Ministry" at Dallas Theological Seminary to read eight books on the subject from a variety of viewpoints. Whether or not they agree with all Sumner says, most have ranked this book as their favorite on the list. Its greatest strength, in their collective opinion, is Sumner's treatment of the husband as head of the wife (not of the family or the home) in Ephesians 5. This flows from her respect for the apostle Paul's head/body metaphor, which emphasizes oneness rather than an org-chart metaphor, which emphasizes hierarchy. Head/body; sacrificial love/submission. Sumner soundly argues that the wife is not told to submit to her husband's headship any more than the husband is told to sacrificially love his wife's bodyship.

S.L. Glahn, co-author, The Infertility Companion

Bypassing the typical rhetoric and discord associated with this topic, Dr. Sarah Sumner's deep but easy-to-read "Men and Women in the Church" takes the reader to the Scriptures and encourages them to compare our fallible traditions concerning men and women in ministry with the infallible Word of God.

Never wavering from God's Word, Sumner addresses the pertinent Scriptures and issues on this much debated topic, and reveals how both sides--complementarians and egalitarians--have something more to learn from the very words of God found in the Bible. Never taking sides, Dr. Sumner helps move toward a Christian consensus and common ground for men and women in the church that enables egalitarians and complementarians to better understand Scripture and one another (especially in chapter 22).

"Men and Women in the Church" helped equip me with a systematic and passionate understanding of how God views men and women, properly revealing their distinctions and relationship with one another. My wife and I have greatly benefited from Dr. Sumner's devotion to truth and desire to rightly divide God's Word.

Most useful and self-examining for ministry and marriage is Sumner's exposition of Ephesians 5.21-33. While acknowledging the distinctions between men and women, husbands and wives, Sumner reveals that Paul is doing something much more than merely handing out a list of chores and roles to husbands and wives; he is exposing how husbands and wives are to relate to one another biblically so that they may be a living, breathing, God-honoring testimony and example of the relationship between Christ and the church. Sumner then under girds her exposition of Ephesians 5 with a theological model of how God heads Christ and how Christ submits to God. Who better to learn from, right?

In the end of Sumner's exposition of Ephesians 5 and what it means to be the head, you're left with a convicting sense that your previous ideas and notions about the relationship between husbands (being the head, sacrificing, and loving) and wives (being the body, submitting, and respecting) fall much too short of the model that God and Christ exemplified within Scripture.

"Men and Women in the Church" is as much for ministers as it is for marrieds. It in fact will benefit the pastor, professor, seminary student, spouse, and small group member. Most importantly, this book will transform how you think about marriage, ministry, and the amazing God who sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins, thereby empowering us to rightly serve Him, His people, and our spouses.

Sumner should at least be commended for three things. First, to have the sense (as well as providential opportunity) to study under Carl F. H. Henry, perhaps one of a handful of the most influential evangelical theologians of the second half of the 20th century. Second, she should be commended for writing in a relatively evenhanded and constructive manner. Much of these kind of books solidify sides and do not build any consensus, but Sumner has really tried to understand the arguments of each side of the debate and represent them positively (this seems clear to me from her footnotes). That may be because she knew the kind of scrutiny her book would be under, or/and because it's good spiritual scholarship. Third, she, in my view, makes a pretty insightful mixture of the available literature and doctrinal exposition- disagreeing with both sides and agreeing with both sides on a point by point basis. For this she will certainly be attacked from both sides.

As a volume, I consider it the most worth reading available among those I have read and I've read several and studied under several of the Trinity scholars (Grudem, Carson, Osborne) she cites repeatedly.

From time to time she takes bad steps for some reason, and her points suffer and then so does her credibility. For example on pages 169-70 she makes a point about the middle voice of hypotasso- that it is in the middle voice, and so refers to one doing the verbal action "to oneself". Well that's true. But it is also true that the middle voice of this verb and the passive voice of this verb are identical in NT Greek, and so it is impossible to know whether this verb is intended in the passive or middle voice- and so her authoritative point from mood is moot.

This kind of example for someone interested and studied in this subject could be multiplied- but not extravagantly. For the most part Sumner shows herself to have decent scholarship and bibliographic poise. She can think and has read the literature, and it seems she submitted her arguments for inspection to relevant people before publication.

All in all this is a worthwhile volume. I think it is a touch too hard on Wayne Grudem and John Piper at points, and does do the straw man thing in a couple of places (Ex. chapter 7). Yet Sumner has produced a work solidly Christian, deeply biblical, and honestly searching for a faithful way to live out life as beings who find ourselves in a "sexual" condition. She dispels some simplistic and monolithic Evangelical notions of manhood and womanhood, and that alone would be worthwhile.

This book could produces some good, lively, and much needed discussions.

As a Senior Pastor of a megachurch, I never expected my theology of the role of men and women to be so challenged, disrupted, and transitioned. Our church leadership team spent one year studying through Sarah's book, discussing it each month and then drawing conclusions. Sarah's theology is readable, her arguments are persuasive (though not aggressive), and her ability to have us all laughing at ourselves was both enlightening and enjoyable. Dr. Sarah Sumner's book is a "must read" for every church leader.

Thorough, thoughtful, balanced, and informative - that is how I'd describe Sarah's book. Dr. Sumner describes the dilemma with grace and exercises impressive theological analysis. The flesh-and-blood examples contextualize the "ivory tower" arguments and provide a perspective of accountability for the ways in which our ideas and arguments shape the course of the church and society.

This is a work every living believer should read.

I don't say that lightly. In fact, I only read it out of obligation since the author attends my church. The subject didn't interest me or impact me that much, coming out of a secular home without many of the prejudices and traditions found in Christian homes. I have never been offended at the thought of a woman leading or teaching in the church. The best person for the job as they say. So I also thought I was already "there" with the author as far as her conclusions and in many ways I found I was.

However, not far into the book I found I was greatly impacted by Sumner's arguments and findings from scriptures. It exposed some things that I had accepted as rote (confusing headship with leadership) and how those extended into how I treat larger issues such as women's ministry, divorce, sex and a host of other issues. In short, even though I started the book in agreement on the surface, it has radically changed many paradigms I have carried with me. For that reason, I put this book on a level with anything I have read from St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis, JP Moreland, Greg Koukl, Ravi Zacharias and others I consider to be "heroes" of Christian thought.

Sarah starts by blowing away one prevailing "straw man" argument - that the controversy of women in church leadership being one of conservative christians vs. liberal feminists. She quickly disproves this by showing that the key people on both sides of this debate are ALL conservative, orthodox christians.

Since most of her readership either follow a strict interpretation of I Timothy 2 or scratch our heads in frustration at the text, she addresses that part of scripture a little over halfway through the book - after laying a foundation of how men and women in the church currently view each other, how men and women are created, the BIBLICAL definition of "head" as opposed to the popular understanding of a man being a head to his wife meaning "leader," and lastly, examples of many women in both the old and new testaments that led, taught and had authority in God's kingdom. Only then does she address I Timothy 2 - in the context of the entire scripture, correctly advising her readers to examine any scripture in light of the bible as a whole - God does not contradict himself.

Other treasures I found in the latter part of the book had to do with paradox vs. contradiction and also a brilliant model of "fault lines" in Christian thought.

As I mentioned, the book took me by surprise. It is not the easiest read, but is not intended to be. Sarah Sumner intended from the beginning to take a controversial issue (women teaching) and explore it in the most exhaustive way possible. While the every-day Christian like me can understand and follow the arguments, there is enough technical content for any philosopher or theologian to debate or explore further.

End.

This book was great! I highly recommend it to everyone. I was raised in a strict fundamentalist Christian culture where I was repeatedly told that women should not bother trying to exegete the Scriptures (its a man's job), or ever think about teaching Bible (its a man's job). I was considered "rebellious" for even having the thought and desire to study and teach Bible (a passion God put in my heart). I was subjected to male chauvenistic spiritual abuse on a regular basis--even on teen mission trips I couldn't escape it (one of my male teammates bragged about his father locking his mother in a room until she "repented of her unsubmission"). One male reviewer here seemed to think Sarah was painting an unrealistically bad view of men in the church. But unless you have walked in the shoes of a female growing up in a very conservative church environment--you really have no clue as to what it is like. Thankfully, many churches are becoming more affirming of women. And, I am now part of an evangelical church that is true to Scripture while also lifting up women.

I found this book soothing, and a much needed work set apart from the usual primitive bickering about "proper roles" on one side and "my rights" on the other. While I can understand where feminist Christian scholars are coming from, I often feel they are reacting to their frustration with oppression (understandably), rather than objectively reading the text for what it says. Sarah (perhaps because she had a very affirming father) doesn't carry some of that baggage and seems more objective as a result. I have had to work through my own anger to the injustice I experienced growing up and still face at times because I know that if I don't I can never be truly effective in ministry. Ministry is not about getting my rights, but about becoming more like Jesus and pointing others to him. As Sarah said we don't need permission from anyone to be what God has called us to be. If God calls us we are called and we can go forth in confidence with that.

Lastly, I found her biblical exegesis to be sharp and fresh. Biblical exegesis is one of my loves and I study constantly. Compared to a lot of other scholarly commentaries and works on the same subject, I find hers to be one of the top.

Dr. Sumner has profoundly influenced my thinking regarding men and women in the church. This book is not so much about what women should or should not do in the church, but rather how men and women relate to each other and thus to the church. Dr. Sumner places a premium on humility and insists that the only right any of us has to any role is the right to call ourselves the children of God. Once we understand that we have no rights, it makes it easier to serve in the roles that God has called and gifted us to.