Wednesday 11 December 2019

9Marks Journal (December 2019) on Complementarianism


The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available from here in various formats, is devoted to the topic of ‘Complementarianism: A Moment of Reckoning’.

At 278 pages long, it’s a hefty beast, and appears to gather together several short articles written at different points over the last few years, making this a useful resource regardless of where one might stand on the issues involved.

Here are some lines from Jonathan Leeman’s long Editorial:

‘It seems to be a moment of reckoning for complementarianism. One can tell since the loudest questions aren’t being asked from outside the camp, but from inside... Step into a group of complementarians these days and it’s likely that one or more will say something about not being that kind of complementarian...

In retrospect, it was perhaps inevitable... that the complementarian tribe would splinter moving from the 1980s and 1990s to the 2000s and 2010s, as one generation gives way to another, particularly when Western culture itself has changed so dramatically on matters of gender...

‘A significant part of pastoral wisdom, then, involves self and cultural awareness. It also involves knowing which problems are the big threats and which are the small threats, which are immediate and which are long term, and knowing how to calibrate our responses to each...

‘A better path forward, I believe, means expecting the world, the flesh, and the devil to attack both gender equality and gender difference, at different times in different ways. Therefore, Christians must continue to search the Scriptures for a better understanding of each, always paying attention to new horizons and new threats.’

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