James R. Beck

Two Views on Women in Ministry is a collection of essays from prominent thinkers regarding the egalitarian/complementarian debate. Craig Keener and Linda Belleville each provide essays supporting egalitarianism, while Tom Schreiner and Ann Bowman present the complementarian point of view. Denver Seminary professors (and editors of the book) James Beck and Craig Blomberg provide commentary on each of the views, and Dr. Blomberg concludes the book with an essay attempting to posit a tertium quid, appropriately entitled "Neither Hierarchicalist [Complementarian] nor Egalitarian."

As someone who has struggled with coming to a concrete decision on this thorny theological topic, the book was of great help to me. Keener, Belleville and Schreiner all wrote exceptional essays, interacting with all of the relevant texts and providing (mostly) good and detailed arguments. I did not find Bowman's essay particularly useful, as she came at the topic from more of an experiential and general philosophy-of-ministry point of view. I was really looking for structured exegesis of key texts. Beck's and Blomberg's commentaries on each pair of essays were beneficial, though, in that they did an excellent job summing up each side's key points, strengths and weaknesses. Blomberg's final commentary provided yet another example of excellent interaction with Scripture, but in the end, I felt his idea of "women can do anything except be the senior pastor" was still essentially complementarian in nature. I'm not convinced he quite made it to that "third way."

In the end, the book allowed me to examine impartially the key arguments and biblical texts involved in the debate about the role of women in ministry, and this is exactly what I was hoping it would do. I do wish that the essayists would have been able to interact with or provide commentary on the other essays presented (I especially would like to see Schreiner's rebuttal to some of the ideas presented by Belleville), but this is the only qualm I have with the book. The editors also rightly noted that 1) this is an extremely complex issue wherein "one cannot legitimately maintain that a true believer in biblical inerrancy must land in one particular camp," and 2) this is not a primary tenet of the Christian faith; therefore, the two camps must agree to disagree in love. I felt this epitomized the manner in which Christians should come to the table on this important and--unfortunately--divisive issue.

I still have lingering questions about this debate, but after having read Two Views, I have been able to make significant headway on determining my own position. And for that, I owe the book's contributors many thanks.… (mais)