Contrary to what you may think, Aimee Byrd’s new book Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is not a point-for-point critique of the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood which was edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. Because I listen to Aimee Byrd regularly on the Mortification of Spin podcast, I already knew that although the title is catchy, it was not Aimee’s choice. Authors don’t always get to pick the title of their book.
It’s About Discipleship
Instead, Aimee Byrd says that her book is about discipleship. The full title of the book is Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose. She wants the church to know that it is the center of discipleship. Parachurch organizations can come alongside the church, but they do not have the same relationship with believers that the church does.
Discipleship is for Women, too
Aimee Byrd also sends a wake up call to churches who are not intentional in discipling the women in their church. She affirms that only qualified men should be elders and pastors in the church. However, some churches go too far by saying that maleness alone makes one qualified for leadership.
In these churches, all the discipleship efforts are poured into the men while the women are left with “theologically anemic books marketed specifically to them” and limited to serving in the kitchen and the nursery (Recovering from…p. 115). Instead, she wants women to be included in the theologically-rich learning opportunities along with the men. Women should also be intentionally discipled to become teachers and leaders in the church.
What Does Biblical Manhood and Womanhood have to do with it?
If Aimee’s book is about discipleship, then where does the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood come into the discussion? In case you don’t know, The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood was organized in 1987 by John Piper, Wayne Grudem, and other evangelical leaders. This parachurch organization “drafted a statement outlining what would become the definitive theological articulation of ‘complementarianism,’ the biblically derived view that men and women are complementary, possessing equal dignity and worth as the image of God, and called to different roles that each glorify him.”
Aimee has seen several negative effects that the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has had on discipleship and the church. I will just briefly mention them here since they take her whole book to develop fully, but if you are curious please read the book to hear her full observations:
The Council encourages Christians to define all male and female relationships through the lens of authority and submission.
It defines masculinity and femninity in this way:
“At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to man’s differing relationships. At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strengthen and leaderships from worthy men in ways appropriate to a women’s differing relationships.”
Ligon Duncan, Preface to Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, p.35-36
Aimee says:
“I find these definitions troublesome. They are one-dimensional. The heart of masculinity and femininity provided here is all about male leadership. Nowhere does Scripture state that all women submit to all men. My aim in life is not to be constantly looking for male leadership.” (p.105)
Aimee Byrd, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, p.105
Not every single man/woman relationship is based on authority and submission. But if you assert that this is what the Bible teaches, you end up with women who are tiptoeing around the men careful not to offer any suggestion or give any direction to them that might damage the man’s delicate psyche of strength (p.107). Aimee Byrd wrote more about this when she responded to John Piper’s answer to the question “Can a woman become a police officer?”
I learned how to answer this overemphasis of authority and submission earlier this year when I read Beyond Authority and Submission: Women and Men in Marriage, Church, and Society by Rachel Green Miller. I highly recommend this book. For me, I was glad I had read it before Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood because I feel like Aimee Byrd’s book is building on the foundation that Rachel Miller laid.
In Beyond Authority and Submission, Rachel Green Miller examines history and the Bible to show how God created men and women to work together as co-laborers with unity and interdependence while still maintaining that only qualified men are to be elders and pastors in the church. In Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Aimee Byrd entertains the thought: once we have shifted away from interpreting every man and woman relationship through the filter of authority and submission, what should the relationships between men and women in the church look like?
We are siblings in the church. There are so many passages in Scripture that tells us what we should do for “one another” as brothers and sisters in the church.
The Council has promoted the damaging doctrine of the Trinity called Eternal Subordination of the Son.
This is one of the things that I am still working on understanding. I heard a critique of this doctrine from the Theology Gals podcast, but I do not have a full grasp on it yet. Most basically, it is the idea that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in essence and not just the economy of salvation. You can read more here on Rachel Green Miller’s blog.
The short explanation is that in order to say that men have headship over women, this must stem from the way they are created in God’s image since authority and submission is supposedly ingrained in our created nature. So when God said in Genesis 1 “Let us make man in Our image” this includes the idea that the Son is subordinate to the Father in eternity past. That’s why women are always subordinate to men. Aimee Byrd explains more about why this cannot be the case in her book and why this is an unorthodox doctrine of the Trinity.
The Council defines “role” as a fixed set of responsibilities.
One question that I’ve asked in different seasons of my life especially when I was a new bride was: “what is my role as a Christian woman?” The CBMW likes to use the word “role” to describe what men and women can or cannot do.
However, the word “role” is not in our modern Bible translations. Aimee says, “we need to stop using the word role in reference to permanent fixed identity. Roles can change especially in different cultures. My sexuality is not a role I play. I don’t need to act like a woman; I actually am a woman. Futhermore, role playing is neither our identity nor our eternal aim.” (p. 120). I appreciated this emphasis throughout her book that femininity is not our ultimate goal as a woman believer. Sanctification is.
What I’m Still Wondering About
I did walk away from Aimee’s book with a couple questions.
What is a “covenant community?” She uses this term often and I have not heard the term before. I assume it means the local church of which you are a member. But maybe it means the Church universal?
Have you heard this term “covenant community” before? If so, let me know in the comments! Perhaps its common in other church traditions and I am not familiar with it. (Or maybe it’s because I went to a Dispensational Bible college so I’ve had limited study of Covenant Theology.) There were a couple of sections where I felt a little bit like an outsider in the discussion especially in regards to ordinances (or sacraments; baptism and the Lord’s Supper). Those sections were very small, but I just wanted to point them out in case you have a similar experience while reading.
Discipleship Gone Rogue
Aimee tells about a friend who has “gone rogue” and disciples people in her own home. She says this woman attends a church, but calls a celebrity her pastor. But she feels a burden to disciple other women so she does this on her own initiative.
This example made me squirm a little since I have discipled women in my home and I also help women grow in their faith through writing and speaking with Read the Hard Parts. None of these are official ministries of my church. How do I know whether or not I have “gone rogue?”
On the one hand, I do teach and lead ministries in my church with the pastor’s and elder’s blessing, so in this way I am more plugged in to my local church than the woman in her example. On the other hand, Read the Hard Parts doesn’t have an official stamp from my church leadership nor do I ask their permission or blessing when I hear that someone I know wants to read and understand the Bible. I just ask the person if she wants to come over and then we pray and read and study!
In doing so, am I “going rogue” and taking discipleship out of the church? Or is it enough that I am in a right relationship with my church? I am very curious about this! So, Aimee, if you are reading this, please let me know in the comments 🙂 How can a woman blogger/writer/speaker be sure that she is not taking discipleship out of the church?
Discipleship as an Individual Responsibility
I have always heard the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) applied to individuals. Perhaps because I most often hear it preached in a missions-focused context. One Christian or Christian family decides to take the command “to go and make disciples of all the nations” personally and they head off to the mission field.
However, Aimee Byrd emphasizes that the Great Commission was given to the church (p.162). That makes sense since baptism happens in the church, but what about the discipleship part of the verse? Is that command primarily given to the church? Jesus gave the command to the eleven who will eventually be church leaders although at the time they are a group of individual followers. There is no organized church yet.
In my church denomination’s Articles of Faith, it says “The Church has been commissioned by Jesus Christ to preach the gospel to all nations. Each Particular Church and every believer bear responsibility for this commission.” This commission is footnoted to reference Matthew 28:19-20.
I believe we need individual believers in right relationship with the church to take personal responsibility for discipleship. In Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Aimee is addressing the church so her focus is on how woman can be an integral part in discipleship in the Sunday morning worship gathering and other official church gatherings. I’m curious how Aimee would suggest this play out the rest of the week. She may have covered this issue in one of her other books like No Little Women. I plan to read it, too, and find out.
Much More in Store
I am so thankful for Aimee Byrd and her work on researching and writing this book. She has come under great scrutiny for this book, mostly (I suspect) from men and women who have not actually read the book or from those who wanted it to be a different book than it is. But it has helped me continue to think about women’s place in the life of the church especially in regards to discipleship.
I recommend Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood especially if you have been pondering men and women in the church or the topic of discipleship. There is a lot more that I learned from her book like the importance of Huldah in 2 Kings and why was Eve created after Adam. Perhaps it is to be an eschatological marker that the Bride of Christ will come later!
If you read the book, let me know! I’d like to hear what you thought!
Note: Some link above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking the link, I will receive a small fee at no expense to you.
I have been pondering the matter of women teaching adult Sunday school classes that include men. I know of a woman who was a missionary in France with her husband, doing church planting. She taught the adult Sunday school class. No one thought anything of her as a woman teaching that class. She may had been the one that said to me that only in the United States the evangelical church does not permit women to teach an adult Sunday school class that includes men. I wonder if Aimee addresses this in her book.
She does not fully address that in her book, but she does briefly entertain the idea of women teaching a coed Sunday School class. I did listen to her on the Theology Gals podcast this week where she talks about her book and she and the hosts do mention that the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood laid out by the Council is very American and more specifically, very white upper middle class American. What they recommend would not work in other cultures.
I hear the term “covenant community” often in my Presbyterian Church. I think you’re right that it essentially means local church and/or church universal. I’ve come to appreciate it as it emphasizes our unity through Jesus and the promises of God rather than through doctrinal statements or individual church affiliation (i.e., what unites us rather than what divides us). Especially in a climate where “evangelical” is becoming something of a dirty word, “church” can carry some unpleasant connotations too. It’s been a refreshing change of terminology for me.
That makes sense that it is a more descriptive way to describe the church and a term without baggage. But is the covenant in the term the “covenant community” a covenant between the people and Jesus or is there a covenant made to each other when a person joins the local church or when they are baptized into the community? Maybe that is what is confusing to me. What covenant is binding the community together? That would determine whether the term is referring to the local church or the church universal.
Hi Rachel, re. Covenant Community: I asked my sister who attends a Scottish Presbyterian Church and I figured out if anyone was familiar with the term, it would be them. Turns out that they don’t use it but the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (at least in Anderson SC) does use it.
She asked her elders and they said they would take it to mean the “local church,” a body of people who are voluntarily associated with at some degree of commitment and, at least theoretically, committed some sort of reciprocal accountability and mutual support. They did not see it as applying to “the invisible church,” whose members would be scattered throughout the ages and over all the earth and who may not even know each other.
I like the word “community” as a description of what we call “the church.” I believe it is much closer to the meaning of the biblical word ekklesia. “congregation” or “assembly” would work too, but “community” suggests mutual accountability and support that is very reflective of the “body” metaphor that Paul uses in Corinthians. And in the community, “submission” runs both ways – Eph 5:21 – disciples of Christ are to be mutually submissive irregardless of gender. Of course, in an individual couple or family, the lines of responsibility are laid out in the verses that follow. But in the community it runs both ways.
Personally, I would listen gladly to anyone, of whatever gender, who helps me understand and appreciate the Gospel better.
Thank you SO much for asking your sister! I appreciate her asking around for me. That makes sense that OPC uses it since I believe the author attends an OPC church. I agree with the word “community” being a great description of the body of Christ. I know first hand that you are an attentive listener to men and women when it comes to understanding God and His word. Thank you for your teachableness and your humble posture before the Lord this way. I miss chatting with you about theological and biblical thoughts. We need the quarantine to end!
Quarantine: I don’t think it will be long now. Any idea when your office will be opening up?
We’ve been open the whole time. I was only going in once a week for awhile and doing everything else at home, but now I’m back to going in twice a week.
The idea of “going rogue” has really made me pause as well, in part because I think this is a real issue I’ve seen firsthand. I definitely have come across women’s groups and blogs where the theology has taken a left turn and there doesn’t seem to be anybody who has the authority to correct or give oversight. I’ve come to terms with where I stand on it, and it has to do with my willingness to submit to authority. My pastor knows of my discipleship work outside the church (like you, I am active both within and beyond the church walls) and is supportive, though it is not a ministry of our church and nor does he want it to be. Going rogue implies going against your church’s leadership, in defiance of authority. I would even take it a step farther, that should my extra-church ministries cause concern for my church’s leadership, I would feel like I had a responsibility to answer to them. My membership in my church denotes my agreement with our theology and respect for our authority, and I think that extends beyond what I do in “approved” ministries.
“My membership in my church denotes my agreement with our theology and respect for our authority, and I think that extends beyond what I do in “approved” ministries.” I really like this, Kirsten! Thanks for sharing. This makes sense to me. That to go rogue would be to stray from my church’s authority and doctrine in my ministry inside and outside the church. The term does imply a defiance.
Hi Rachel, Thanks for a thorough review of both books. I keep hearing about them. As for covenant community, my experience matches Rebecca’s above. It seems to be common vernacular among churches in the Reformed tradition. Basically a term for faithful membership but established with the idea that God is joining individuals in a local church together. It can point to a bigger Church some, but is primarily referring to local commitments.
Thank you, Traci, for weighing in! I think that is why the term is confusing to me. Sometimes I felt like it refers to the local church and other times to the church universal. So if it mostly is a term used to refer to the local church, than there is a covenant that binds the people together in the local church. Is this a binding church membership agreement? Or is the covenant in the term “covenant community” referring to the covenant between God and people? Anyway, it wasn’t a major point in the book, just a new term for me to hear so of course I was curious! I think you would really appreciate this book!