…I asked around for the best serious, scholarly treatment of the complementarian position on all issues related to gender, marriage and family. The recommendations were unanimous, and I dropped the cash (not Kindle format even) and acquired the recommended book…
Read his entire post here.
Hi, Molleth! Glad to see/read you online again!
I read the InternetMonk’s article, but unless I missed it, I couldn’t find the title of the so-called “recommended book” from which he launches his column.
What book is he talking/writing about/against?
P.S. iMonk said he’ll give the title via email, so I emailed him for it.
For the equally curious, the book in question is:
God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation by Andreas J. Köstenberger
But please honor iMonk’s request and keep the name of the book out of the comments to his blogpost so the comments there stay on topic.
Of course, if you’ve read the book in question, you can share your thoughts about it here in Molleth’s post.
He quotes one of my fav passages in Scripture, from Ex 21 which is the Biblical justification in the Torah for a woman to divorce for neglect/abuse.
As an egal, I also am largely failed to be persuaded by comp. arguments. There is simply not enough there there.
Likewise here. The final step in my becoming an egal was rereading the comp arguments at a deeper level and deciding that it simply wasn’t what the scriptures were actually saying. I’ve had the same experience with a couple of other issues too (cessationist/continuationist andCalvinist/Arminian) without wanting to get off topic by saying what I decided, in each case it was delving deeper into what i’d been taught that convinced me that a theological position I’d taken for granted didn’t actually have as much biblical support as they claimed.
I sat through my Hebrew classes in a very comp bible college (you’d have to understand the Australian system to understand why I did my Hebrew in a different college as part of my degree) and we translated Genesis 1-3. I was the only woman in the class. Since I was there to learn Hebrew, not to change the views of a denomination I don’t even belong to, I kept my mouth shut while the straightforward account would be translated, and then people would madly eisegete all these gender issues into it. They simply weren’t there in the text!
The one time I spoke out was when, in Genesis 3, someone took the bit about pain in childbearing and asked whether that was to keep woman properly dependent on man!!! The lecturer hedged, and asked my opinion, as the only mother in the room. Praying madly for wisdom, I suggested that one of the purposes of suffering in a fallen world was to bring us back to a position of dependence on God! The pastor-to-be who had asked the question said, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that!” I still shudder when I think of it!
Poor Lynne,
I’ve started doing a BTh online through Charles Sturt U. and St Mark’s in Canberra. I love what I’m learning!
I don’t really understand why you had to do Hebrew through Moore but I am SO GLAD that we moved away from that diocese, that everything happened the way it has and that I have learned so much more about God’s love for us through working with people who also love God but haven’t bought into that mob’s subordinationist theology.
No, not Moore, they don’t interact with other colleges, and their courses aren’t modular. I did my BTh through Tabor – which was great, but they allowed a fair bit of leeway for shaping your course, and I wanted to add Hebrew to my Greek, so I did it through the Prezzies, and then got it credited back to my Tabor degree (the beauties of cross-institutional credit.)
I’ve heard nothing but good of St Mark’s, and I’m seriously thinking of doing my MTh with them in a few years time. I don’t have the option of geographically leaving Sydney.
I am a big fan of IMonk and comment there now and again. This particular post of his, however, really piqued my curiosity when I read it last week. Although I was certainy aware of some of the philosophies of the very conservative branches of the church in regards to women and their roles, I had no idea that this discourse was happening in cyberland. I spent a lot of this past weekend educating myself on the issue, and trying to see the other side of things (I guess we would squarely be in the egalitarian camp). Along the way I met some wonderful people and had my eyes opened to some things that were really disturbing, so it was quite a journey.
So still learning, against the backdrop of my own successful 27-year egalitarian marriage. When I mentioned several things to him over the last few days, his response was, “why would anybody want to live like that, male or female?”
Well, I don’t know the complete answer to that, but I’m trying to understand.
Wow – sorry – 2nd to the last paragraph is very unclear – my apologies. The “him” I was referring to there is my husband.