A Year of Biblical Womanhood: A Review

There are several reasons why I decided to read and review Rachel Held Evans’ forthcoming book A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master" (Thomas Nelson; October 30, 2012).

I certainly am not writing this review out of any sense of convenience and comfort. Here’s why I did:

First, as a Christian woman who adheres to Reformed doctrine, I believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, written by men, inspired by God, infallible in all that it teaches, sufficient for all of life and doctrine, and the very words of God, words from God. And this new book from Evans is a recent example of how this essential truth is lost.

Second, I write this review because I have something of a relational history with the author. I have had the pleasure of corresponding with her over emails and have enjoyed our brief interactions.

Third, and even more centrally, I write this review out of a love for my fellow sisters in the church who are trying to walk with integrity as women, as I am, before God.

Finally, I write this review out of a love for the lost who are searching for answers about God and the Bible and will read this book and sadly be misled.

Before I begin the review, let me say that I find this book to be most troubling because of Evans’ handling of Scripture. As much as I hoped to be pleasantly surprised, as I read my heart became heavy. And yet, for all its weaknesses, this book is sure to draw a lot of attention in the coming weeks.

Evans embarked on a yearlong mission to explore the Scripture references to women, following and practicing what they say as literally as possible. Her adventures take her through various Jewish traditions, she interviews polygamists, she camps outside, she spends the night in a monastery.

Each month, for one year, she tackled a new challenge or virtue such as gentleness, domesticity, obedience, and submission. At the end of each chapter, she features a specific woman in the Bible writing out a historical profile and her thoughts.

She interviews a wide range of people from a variety of faiths and traditions. Her book does not draw from purely an evangelical, or even distinctly Christian, perspective. Many of her rituals are from the Jewish tradition, and she quotes several Rabbis.

As I read the book, it became increasingly clear to me of one theme: God’s word was on trial. It was the court of Rachel Held Evans. She was the prosecution, judge, and jury. The verdict was out. And with authority and confidence, she would have the final word on womanhood.

Evans makes it clear that although she holds the Bible in high esteem as a historical document, she would warn us to be careful in attempting to use it as a guide for living out the Christian faith. A few quotes explain her stance.

Despite what some may claim, the Bible’s not the best place to look for traditional family values as we understand them today. (48)

I kept digging, and as it turns out, Peter and Paul were putting a Christian spin on what their readers would have immediately recognized as the popular Greco-Roman “household codes.” (216)

Evans also quotes Sharyn Dowd saying, “The apostles advocated this system not because God had revealed it as the divine will for Christian homes, but because it was the only stable and respectable system anyone knew about. It was the best the culture had to offer” (217).

The Bible is a sacred collection of letters and laws, poetry and proverbs, philosophy and prophecies, written and assembled over thousands of years in cultures and contexts very different from our own, that tells the complex, ever-unfolding story of God’s interaction with humanity. (293)

And you see it most clearly in Evans' conclusion.

For those who count the Bible as sacred, the question when interpreting and applying the Bible to our lives is not, will we pick and choose? But rather how will we pick and choose? We are all selective in our reading of Scripture, and so the question we have to ask ourselves is this: Are we reading with the prejudice of love or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? (295)

And later:

This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not, what does it say? But what am I looking for? I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, “ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (295)

Throughout A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Evans works to prove that the Bible is not without error and therefore cannot be applied literally — and in some cases cannot be trusted (as we see by the implications of Paul’s and Peter’s motives, she says, to keep their culture in the Scriptures). Furthermore, the Scriptures are called sacred but never inspired by God, never the very words of God.

This notion is applied to every text, except in the chapter on justice where she unequivocally determines that God got it right: “Justice is one of the most consistent and clear teachings of Scripture, and traditionally, a crucial function of the Church” (228).

Evans selects various Old Testament laws regarding women and discusses the horror of such laws, yet she never rises to the place where the purpose of these laws are made sense of. And yet she never introduces the redemptive history of Scripture. This point could take up an entire lengthy blog post of its own. Evans will not allow redemptive history into her courtroom.

This is not to say that Evans is a poor writer. She’s talented, engaging, funny, and at times I found myself wrapped in her story, pretending to grip a walkie-talkie for her as she described sleeping alone in her tent in the front yard during her monthly cycle (see Leviticus 15:19–33). While the living-biblically-for-a-year theme is not original to her, she wrote this book quite creatively.

But while the book is engaging, her methods and her conclusions on womanhood are confusing at best. And this is largely because she selectively decides which Scriptures apply to women and which ones do not. She spoke with men and women from a full range of backgrounds and faiths and then attempted to apply them to evangelical Bible-believing Christianity. The majority of her quotes and references from complementarians aim to show complementarianism as foolish and dated. Strangely she more often cites authors with a more traditionalist orientation (and less truly complementarian) and only one or two of the more biblical moderates.

Evans claims to be caught between conservative and liberal theology. She believes in the physical resurrection of Christ, and she believes in evolution. But in seeking to bridge conservative and liberal theology in this book, she invests so much time explaining what she does not believe, that readers will be left wondering exactly what she does believe.

Part of this comes down to widely differing worldviews. To understand womanhood, Evans blends Eastern practices and mysticism, with a few selected Scripture quotes. For me to properly understand biblical womanhood, I can only finally return to God’s sufficient word, which is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). Our worldviews split over whether the Bible is inerrant and sufficient. And when the Bible is determined to be insufficient to guide our faith and life, or to define womanhood according to God’s design, the temptation is to run to various methods, various faiths, and to synchronize selected doctrines — which is precisely what Evans does in this book.

Through this book it seems Evans is trying to “reach” women like me, who take the Bible seriously and believe God is honored through his design for complementary roles in marriage and the church. But I fear she will actually have the greatest impact on those who are already sympathetic to her undermining of the truthfulness and sufficiency and relevance of the Bible, those who are already suspicious of Christianity, and who are already prone to deny that God has designed a special and beautiful role for women in marriage. This is a book that will reinforce the views of non-Christian men and women who seek validation for thinking Christians are foolish for following the Bible closely.

In this book Evans is trying to build a bridge, but I wonder if it is not rather a comfortable bridge for shaky evangelicals to find their way into theological liberalism. This book is not ultimately about manhood and womanhood, headship and submission, or the complementarian and egalitarian debate. At its root this book questions the validity of the Bible. And denying the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture is a denial that will ultimately erode the gospel of our Savior.

Book Review: The Mystery of Christ by John Behr

Book Review: The Mystery of Christ by John Behr 

John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2006. 186pp.

Peter Lombard’s assertion in the Middle Ages that either the Father or the Spirit could have equally become incarnate is often cited by the East as a primary example of the Latin West’s deficient trinitarianism. This move, according to John Behr, appears to have begun with Augustine,

who, having inherited the results of the fourth-century debates rather than living through them, is the first to claim that the theophanies of the Old Testament could be manifestations of any of the three persons of the Trinity, or the Trinity itself, the one Lord God, or, instead, a created mediator. (174)

Unlike the apostles and early church Fathers who sought to testify concerning the mystery that was revealed in the coming of Christ, post-Nicene theologians (like Augustine) tended to view the doctrine of the Trinity, as confessed at Nicaea, as a given.

Modern expositions of trinitarian theology, according to Behr, follow suit and “begin with the results of the theological debates of the early centuries . . . but separate these theological formulas from the way in which they were in fact learned . . .” (15). The result of such a reading is that modern theology tends to read and understand Scripture in a very different manner than either the apostles or the early Church Fathers.

Yet, when the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds are taken seriously as confessions (rather than accounts of ‘what really happened’), we are forced to “take seriously the exegetical practices of the apostles and the early Christians following in their footsteps” (16). And this ‘taking seriously’ is precisely what John Behr attempts to do in his book. Behr shows that, when Scripture is considered from a less-than-modern perspective (most clearly evinced in the endless attempts at reconstruction of the life of Jesus, among other things) and more from the perspective of the apostles and early church Fathers, one finds that “For antiquity . . . the truth of Christ is eternal, or better, timeless: the crucified and risen Lord is the one of whom scripture has always spoken” (17, emphasis added). While truth for modernity lies in the past, for the apostles and the early church, truth rested timelessly in Christ.

Behr’s project is congenial to many Reformed convictions since he recognizes that the Old Testament (which were the scriptures for the apostles and early church), is not to be understood in a modern ‘historicist’ fashion. Just as the apostles and Fathers of the church have understood, all of scripture testifies concerning Christ. This becomes clear in the gospels, as Christ is understood to be God, not through mere literal fulfillment of a checklist of prophecies, but rather, as Behr puts it,

It was only after the Passion, in their encounter with the Risen Christ, that [the disciples] finally knew him to be the Lord, as he opened the scriptures, showing that it was necessary for him to have undergone the Passion to enter into his glory, and broke bread with them (cf. Lk 24.25-32). (45)

Despite the fact that the disciples had “heard all sorts of divine teachings from [Christ],” still they “abandoned him at the time of his crucifixion” (21); yet these are the same disciples who, after the Passion and resurrection of Christ, proclaim him confidently, even to the point of martyrdom. This itself is enough to show that, for the disciples, the modern approach to scripture could only be highly insufficient.

Continuing with this sort of Christocentric re-reading of theology, Behr examines how it was primarily through the attempt to better understand the mystery of Christ that the early Church came to understand creation, salvation, Mary, and the human body. As Behr explicates these doctrines, one immediately encounters an encouragingly Christocentric reading on the one hand, as well as, at least for confessional Reformed folk, somewhat problematic doctrines. These disagreements are not unexpected since Behr comes from the Orthodox tradition (the book itself is published by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press!) and the primary issues are located in Behr’s discussion on creation and salvation.

Quoting Irenaeus, Behr puts forward a very strong christocentrism (which is very similar to Karl Barth’s revised supralapsarianism): “Since he who saves already existed, it was necessary that he who would be saved should come into existence, that the One who saves should not exist in vain” (77). Thus, “the solution comes first,” only when we understand Christ can “we begin to understand where the problem lies” (84). What this means is that there can be no understanding of Adam and the Fall apart from the salvation already to be provided in Christ. To conceive of creation without Christ, “a creation in which, had human beings not sinned, there would have been no need for Christ” would be to displace Christ (85). For those who subscribe the Reformed confessions, this means no covenant of works and certainly no forms of infralapsarianism.

It would, however, be wrong to think that the Reformed are guilty of an un-christocentric theology merely because they affirm the covenant of works. No Reformed theologian would have denied the part that the Word had to play in creation since they all affirmed that the external works of the Trinity were indivisible; and had Adam not sinned it does not follow that the Word would have therefore been uninvolved with humanity. In other words, it is not a failure to be consistently christocentric on the part of the Reformed confessions, but a recognition that the drama of redemption necessitates that Adam, as federal head, might have obeyed. The fact that Adam fell only heightens the dramatic tension making the Redeemer’s debut on the stage that much more glorious. Since Behr’s aim is not polemical, but an attempt to understand the early church Fathers, we must note disagreement here.

In sum, the book has much to offer in terms of clarification. It is a breath of fresh air, reminding us that acceptance of the creeds of Niceaea and Chalcedon cannot be done without giving heed to the way in which the church Fathers understood the testimony of Christ. Though there are areas of substantial disagreement, the Trinity and Christ’s two natures are not among them; because of this, it would be foolish to, with much of modern theology, “forget how theology learned to speak” (180).

Joshua Lim

MAHT Candidate

 

Book Review: Anti-Arminians by Stephen Hampton

Book Review: Anti-Arminians by Stephen Hampton 

Stephen Hampton, Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 293pp.

The common story about the fate of the Reformed faith in England in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century is that it all but disappeared with the growth and surging popularity of Arminian theology. While it is true that Arminian theology became the majority report in the Anglican church during the eighteenth century, this does not mean that Reformed theology was totally eclipsed. This is the core of the argument that Hampton offers in this published version of his doctoral dissertation.

Hampton identifies key theologians and trends on both side of the Arminian-Reformed debate, though he also carefully notes the influence of Socinianism upon the theology of a number of key Arminian theologians. Hampton covers three key subjects of debate, the doctrine of justification, the doctrine of the trinity, and the doctrine of God. In each of these subjects Hampton carefully weighs the evidence and shows how Arminian theologians argued their position and were then refuted by those with Reformed convictions.

For example, in Hampton’s coverage of the justification debates in the late seventeenth century, he explains how older scholarship, such as the well-known work of C. Fitzsimons Allison, The Rise of Moralism, lacked needed nuance. Allison claims in his work that the Reformed doctrine of justification was largely eclipsed, but Hampton shows that Allison does not spend much space giving exposition to the works of Reformed Anglicans. Given the lack of attention to key Reformed works, Hampton claims Allison’s portrait of the Anglican slide into moralism is inaccurate (48-49).

In his exposition of the justification debate, Hampton makes a careful survey of Arminian works, such as those by George Bull (1634-1710), who believed that a person’s good works were not part of the meritorious cause of justification—the works of Christ were the meritorious cause of a person’s justification. But Bull nevertheless did argue that Christian obedience was the sine qua non of justification (48-49). Moreover, Bull also believed that the righteousness of Christ was not imputed to the believer, but rather Christ had secured a more lenient gospel covenant. That is, Christ has secured more lenient terms and requirements of Christian obedience than formerly existed under the law. So for Bull, there was no transfer of Christ’s righteousness to the believer (53). Bull believed that the standard Reformed view, one that holds that Christ fulfills the obligations of the law on the believer’s behalf, would lead to antinomianism (55). In the following chapter Hampton elaborates the Reformed response to the arguments put forth by Bull and others (77-128).

All in all Hampton convincingly argues his thesis and ably demonstrates through ample primary-source research that Reformed Anglicans did not disappear from the English scene. Rather they made a strong showing and defense of key theological doctrines such as justification. Noteworthy are Hampton’s treatments of the Trinitarian controversies, where Arminian Anglican theologians advocated a subordinationist doctrine of Christ’s deity, which teaching was gleaned from Socinian anti-trinitarian theologians. Such a historical record is worth studying to see where Arminian theology deviated not simply from Reformed norms, but from catholic (read universal) Christian teaching.

The only quibble I have with Hampton’s otherwise fine work is, at times it seems like the adjectives Hampton uses to describe the deficiencies in earlier literature are a bit overstated. To say that Allison’s work, for example, “deeply distorted” (42) the historical portrait of the Anglican Church could be stated in less emotional terms. A second issue I have is with the publisher. The list price of this book is $240! This means the book costs almost a dollar per page! The Kindle version of this book is not much better at a whopping $183! So much for the cost-saving benefits of digital publishing. At the time of writing this review I noted that there were a number of copies listed through Amazon at more than sixty percent off the list price, which was how this review copy was obtained. Nevertheless, Oxford Press should consider ways to issue less-expensive editions of fine works such as this to broaden the reading audience.

Nevertheless, for those interested in learning more about the history of Reformed theology in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth century, they would do well to obtain a copy of Hampton’s fine study.

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Book Review: Sing a New Song by Joel Beeke and Anthony Selvaggio

Book Review: Sing a New Song by Joel Beeke and Anthony Selvaggio 

Westminster Seminary’s beloved professor and president, Dr. Godfrey, convinced me to recover psalm singing in worship.  He took his argument (I know now thanks to Sing a New Song) from Calvin’s Preface to the Psalter (1543).  Calvin argued that we should sing psalms because “we shall not find better…nor more fitting” songs for worship.  Dr. Godfrey wittily echoed Calvin saying in class that he would prefer a hymn to an inspired psalm, once man could match the grandeur of the Holy Spirit.  Calvin also goes on to say that in psalm singing God Himself is “singing in us to exalt His glory.”  Dr. Godfrey converted me to psalm singing, and Sing a New Song has strengthened that conviction. 

Unfortunately, Calvin's and Dr. Godfrey's call to psalmody has fallen on deaf ears, for psalm singing is scarcely heard in modern worship.  Like a three-part harmony, this book’s three sections can help the church rediscover “God’s hymnbook.”  Part One examines the history of psalm singing in the church.  Part Two presents the biblical reasons.  Part Three shows how the church in the twenty-first century can use psalms in worship. 

This book would be a good primer for those interested in the “worship wars” as they relate to psalmody.  The book is not limited to exclusive psalmody per se, as it is more an argument for using inspired text in worship.  The majority of the writers do not come out expressively either way.  For example, Rowland Ward argues for psalms but also hymns that faithfully express biblical truths (88).  Malcolm Watts, however, presents a strong case for exclusive psalmody.  Watts states, “The church has divine and scriptural warrant, then, to sing the inspired psalms in her worship.  What she does not have is warrant to sing uninspired hymns” (131).  The other authors are not as clear either way.  However, reading between the lines, I believe they would come down on Watts’ side. 

Watts uses the Creator-creature distinction to argue for inspired psalms.  If creation depends on its Creator for everything, how much more fallen man depends on the Creator to express with words the glory of God.  Therefore, the Holy Spirit inspired Old Testament writers to pen the “Songs of the Lord” for the church in worship (1Chron 25:7; Ps 137:4; 22:25).  He then called them to sing the “songs of Zion” (Ps 137:3) with the voice of the psalms (1Chron 16:9; Ps 81:2; 95:2: 98:5; 105:2).  Asaph directs the preservation and transmission of the psalms “to the generation[s] to come” that they may sing “the praises of the Lord” (Ps 78:4).

Watts argues that the New Testament commands the singing of inspired texts only (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16).  The triad “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” all refer to psalms.  Ward agrees that the adjective “spiritual” modifies the entire triad demonstrating that Paul is authorizing inspired songs for worship.  Watts believes this makes the most sense given Paul’s reason to sing, for the “teaching and admonishing [of] one another” (Col 3:16), which is the function of Scripture (Rom 15:3-4; 2 Tim 3:16-17). 

The historians only seem to back up Watts as they demonstrate church history’s love of the psalms in her worship.  From the early days of the Reformation, the Reformers, and especially the Reformed predominantly practiced exclusive inspired singing.  Thanks to a “Puritan-minded Baptist preacher Benjamin Keach (1640–1707),” and a subsequent Presbyterian, Isaac Watts (1674–1748), the practice eroded from the halls of the Protestant church.  I for one hope for a modern reformation in worship and would highly recommend this book. 

Jared Beaird is a recent graduate of WSC.      

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Book Review: Welcome to a Reformed Church by Danny Hyde

Book Review: Welcome to a Reformed Church by Danny Hyde 

Danniel Hyde, Welcome to a Reformed Church: A Guide for Pilgrims (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2010). 178pp. Paper. $12.00

Occasionally, Reformed churches are caricatured as “boring, cold, and serious” (147). Daniel Hyde, however, shows in Welcome to a Reformed Church: A Guide for Pilgrims that quite the opposite is true of those that function according to God’s Word. His book then is a “guide for pilgrims,” which winsomely introduces newcomers to Reformed churches in order “to clear up any misunderstandings” (xxvi). It does this by examining their history, confessions, doctrines, and practices.

 The first chapter provides a summary of church history, showing how Reformed churches are Christian as they confess early church creeds, Protestant because they protested Roman Catholicism, and “Reformed according to the Word of God” (12). Chapters two and three provide confessional and scriptural grounds. Many Christians believe the Bible but do not know what it teaches. Confessions, then, are beneficial summaries of doctrine arising from Scripture. The fourth through sixth chapters explain key doctrines. Hyde explains that Covenant unites Scripture, and then he details the covenants of works, grace, and redemption. He then explains justification according to which sinners are imputed righteousness. Finally, he describes sanctification whereby the Spirit enables believers to begin to obey God’s law. Chapters seven through nine present church practices. First, true churches preach the gospel, administer the (two) sacraments, and exercise church discipline. Second, true worship is according to God’s Word. Finally, Hyde explains that the Holy Spirit works in preaching and the sacraments to create and confirm faith respectively. Two appendices are also included: one which answers commonly asked questions, and one which includes helpful bibliographies for further study. 

One strength to note is that this book provides an attractive, charitable introduction to Reformed churches. Another is that it is well organized, clear, and provides summaries with accurate distinctions. Furthermore, Hyde emphasizes that these distinctions are “not motivated…by ego or arrogance, but by a sincere desire to see all God’s sons and daughters in churches that feed their souls” (105). Finally, the book utilizes and points readers to excellent sources. 

There are not many weaknesses. One might be that the target audience is a bit ambiguous. If the reader is “confused about all of the so-called ‘churches’ dotting the religious landscape” (xxiv), then it seems a bit lengthy. For instance, some material regarding preaching and the sacraments is repeated to provide various nuances. However, if the reader is “moving toward involvement in a Reformed church” (xxv) and seeking slightly greater detail, then the book is well-tailored. It seems more helpful to this second step.

These areas noted, however, do not detract from the over-all value of this book. It is an erudite yet clear and charitable introduction to Reformed churches for those who are interested in them. It also contains many helpful reminders for those who are already members. In the former case, I would definitely recommend buying it. In the latter case, you might buy two: one for yourself and one to share with a non-Reformed friend.

Brandon Hoffman, MAHT Student

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