Aimee Byrd has created some controversy with her new book, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose. The title is clearly aimed at the 1991 collection of essays edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (RBMW hereafter).
That book defended and promoted the view known as “complementarianism,” which holds that a man is to lead in the home and that only men can be pastors. The organization behind RBMW is known as the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), and its theological views are expressed in the Danvers Statement. Byrd actually criticizes this organization more than the book that her title is named after.
There have been plenty of attacks over the years on complementarianism, but usually from the feminist/egalitarian side. What makes Byrd’s book unique is that she is a member of a conservative denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), and would presumably fall into the complementarian camp. Byrd joins fellow OPC member Rachel Green Miller, who published Beyond Authority and Submission in the fall of 2019, in their attempted critique of complementarianism (see my review of Miller’s book).
I actually think there are some good reasons to criticize RBMW and complementarianism, but they differ vastly from those of Byrd. There is a strong case that complementarianism was a departure from traditional Christian views and that it softened the Bible’s teaching on male rule in many ways. Many complementarians are uncomfortable with hierarchy and authority, and they have almost unanimously embraced the novel view that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 only prohibits a woman from evaluating prophecy in a worship service (canonized in Carson’s chapter in RBMW).
Complementarian Controversies
Even apart from Byrd’s book, complementarianism has not been without controversy in recent years. There has been debate over the Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son (ESS), a view that many, but not all, complementarians hold. Wayne Grudem, in particular, has taught that the Son eternally submitted to the Father (and not just after the incarnation), which he claims provides an example for how a man and woman can be equal yet have different roles. Both Miller and Byrd rightfully critique this view, but they mistakenly treat ESS as if it is central to complementarianism rather than representing only one strand.
There has also been fighting within complementarianism between camps known as “broad” and “narrow” complementarians. Broad complementarians emphasize the differing natures of men and women more, leading to the application of gender roles to all of society, including the civil sphere. Narrow complementarians only want to affirm role differences in the home and church, leading to a sort of egalitarianism in broader society.
The book RBMW was mostly a defense of a narrow complementarianism since it focused on the home and church. Yet its authors were also a mix of broad and narrow, with John Piper holding to a broader complementarianism, exemplified in his opposition to a woman being a president or police officer (the latter of which Byrd mocks). On the other hand, Wayne Grudem sees no problem with a woman holding civil office,[1] and he thinks women can lead prayer and read Scripture in public worship and serve communion.[2] And there are even narrower complementarian views that allow women to preach sermons to men, with the only prohibition being that women cannot be pastors or elders. This view is summed up in the saying, “a woman may do anything a non-ordained man may do” (which was the practice of Tim Keller’s church).[3]
Is Byrd a Narrow Complementarian?
So where does Aimee Byrd fall within complementarianism? She has stated in a blog post that she wants nothing to do with the labels broad or narrow—“I just don’t do this broad/narrow comp. stuff.” She actually dismisses the categorization completely—“While labels and terms can be helpful, I find that the teaching in God’s word regarding men and women to be much more beautifully complex than we can offer a term for.”
Byrd can reject labeling her position, but that does not mean her views do not fall within these groups. Labels are helpful here because we are trying to understand exactly what Byrd believes. It is quite clear that she is not in the broad complementarian camp. The question becomes whether she even falls within narrow complementarianism. Byrd does not think a woman can be a pastor, so that would place her at least partly in the narrow complementarian camp.
However, in other areas Byrd critiques even narrow complementarianism (see below). As noted above, the book she is reacting to, RBMW, was not even that conservative or broadly complementarian. RBMW mostly defended two obvious points from Scripture: (1) a man is head of his household, and (2) only men can serve as pastors and elders.
Do Complementarians Ignore Discipleship?
So what exactly is the point of Byrd’s book? In her own words, she says her goal is to present “an alternative to all the resources marketed on biblical womanhood and biblical manhood today, focusing on the reciprocity of the male and female voices in Scripture, the covenantal aspect to Bible reading and interpretation, and bearing the fruit of that in our church life” (25). She emphasizes the “female voice” of Scripture by discussing women in the Bible like Ruth and Rahab (chapters 2 and 3), which she calls “gynocentric interruptions,” a fancy phrase for women-centered passages in the Bible. Yet it is not clear exactly how this serves as a corrective to RBMW or complementarianism.
It should be noted that RBMW and many other complementarian works were primarily a reaction to the feminist attacks on the Bible’s teaching of male leadership in the home and church (hence the subtitle, A Response to Evangelical Feminism). Yet Byrd treats these books as if they are all-encompassing works on the Christian life. As she states in her introduction:
As we’ve been taught to focus on aiming for biblical manhood and womanhood, we have missed the bigger picture of Christlikeness to which we are called. And we have lost aim of what the church is for: preparing us for eternal communion with the triune God. We have taken discipleship out of the church, further separating God’s people by culturally constructed gender paradigms (26).
This is quite the charge. Byrd is claiming that complementarians “focus” on “manhood and womanhood” to the point that they ignore (“missed”) “Christlikeness” and “discipleship.” If one wanted to establish such a claim, how would one go about it? That person should comb through the writings of complementarians and show they focus on manhood and womanhood to the neglect of Christlikeness and discipleship. Of course, Byrd does no such thing. Nor could she. The claim is baseless.
Byrd also claims above that complementarians hold to “culturally constructed gender paradigms.” She lists some examples from RBMW on page 106, such as a man seating a woman at a restaurant and a husband driving his wife when both are in the car. Yet these are hardly central to RBMW, and if you look up the context, these are part of a list of questions about applying masculinity.
We must also ask—does Byrd think manhood and womanhood are unrelated to discipleship or Christlikeness? God does not redeem us as sexless humans but as men and women. For “from the beginning of creation ‘God made them male and female’” (Mark 10:6). God saves us to a holy calling (2 Timothy 1:9), and that will differ in some ways based on whether a person is a man or a woman. A Christian man should lead his wife and provide for his family, while a Christian woman should focus on bearing and raising children. This is why the Apostle Paul gives specific instructions for men and women throughout his letters (e.g. Ephesians 5:22-33; Colossians 3:18-19; Titus 2:2-6).
Manhood and womanhood most certainly have bearing on the “discipleship” that Byrd is so concerned about. Paul does not tell men to disciple women, but rather he tells “older women” to “teach what is good, and so train the young women” (Titus 2:3-4). And what are they to train the young women to do? The older women are to “train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands” (Titus 2:4-5). Does Byrd focus on this passage as she writes about discipleship? Sadly, she only mentions Titus 2 to complain that the “doctrine part gets ignored and women are merely delegated to a domestic sphere that is disconnected from serious theological study” (115).
Byrd also commits the same error that Miller makes in her book, which is to equate femininity with being female. She says, “I do not need to do something a certain way to be feminine . . . I simply am feminine because I am female” (114). Also, “I don’t need to act like a woman; I actually am a woman” (120). Can a woman not be manly and a man not be effeminate? There is a reason the Bible calls women to act like women and men act like men. Men are not to be effeminate (1 Corinthians 6:9), and women are to carry out womanly tasks and not those reserved for men (1 Timothy 2:12, 15). Thus, Byrd proves that she is actually the one with a deficient view of discipleship and Christlikeness.
Significant Problems with the Book
I do not want to review everything in Byrd’s book, but I would like to highlight two significant problems overall.
First, Byrd does not address important Bible passages on the subject of manhood and womanhood. If someone wants to write a book on (or against!) biblical manhood and womanhood, it should cover important passages, such as Genesis 1–3, Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 11 and 14:34-35, and 1 Timothy 2. Yet somehow Byrd does not address 1 Corinthians 11:7-9 or 1 Timothy 2:8-15 (see her response below).
She does address 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, but her treatment is quite disappointing. Byrd says that 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 “actually reveal the efforts to include the women’s voice and contribution, even in the worship service” (193). The irony here is that Paul silenced the women for this attempt, saying they are to “keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says” (1 Corinthians 14:34). Byrd comments, “Many affirm that these passages [1 Corinthians 11–14] teach a silence of the women in worship. In fact, a Biblicist reading of 1 Corinthians 14:34 can be pretty scary for women to read” (193). Yes, that terrible “Biblicist” reading that Paul actually meant what he said, that women are not to speak publicly in worship.
Byrd clearly rejects this traditional interpretation and says Paul’s requirement of women’s silence is within the “evaluation-of-the-prophecies context” (197). Two things stand out in this section: (1) Byrd does not provide an adequate explanation of why Paul’s words do not mean women are prohibited from speaking publicly in worship (as understood by theologians throughout history), but merely states they have to do with “proper order in public worship” (195); and (2) She in part adopts the mainstream complementarian view that women’s silence only refers to evaluating prophecy, yet she never acknowledges that she shares their view. Instead, she attacks the traditional view as if most complementarians hold it today! She thus misrepresents RBMW and the complementarians that she seeks to criticize.
Second—and most problematic of all—the entire thrust of Byrd’s book is in the direction of feminism. While she does not argue for women pastors, she does adopt several egalitarian readings and views. She quotes egalitarians throughout her book, such as Philip Payne on Phoebe (148), and Ben Witherington and Cynthia Westfall on 1 Corinthians 14 (198). She argues that Phoebe’s description as prostatis was a “leadership term” (148). She describes a “co-ed team of apostles,” implying that there were female apostles (227), and she speaks of women “planting churches” (192).
Byrd firmly states that Junia in Romans 16:7 was a woman apostle, without interacting with the strong arguments against this position (223–224, 233). Byrd does not explicitly make the jump, but it should be noted that most egalitarians argue for women apostles to support their position that women can serve as pastors. However, Byrd does use Junia to argue that women can teach Sunday school to men—“If Junia can be sent as an apostle with Andronicus to establish churches throughout Rome, then you should at least value coeducational teaching teams in Sunday school” (233).
She also uses the phrase “mutual submission”—“Paul teaches mutual submission among Christians even as he addresses husbands and wives specifically” (105). What Byrd means by this is not clear, but this is a phrase that egalitarians use to undermine male headship by asserting that husbands should also submit to wives. The text of Ephesians 5:21 only says “submitting to one another,” by which Paul then goes on to explain what he means, that wives should submit to husbands, children obey parents, and slaves obey masters (Ephesians 5:22–6:9).
Byrd also argues for women seminary professors (i.e. women training pastors in pastor-training institutions). She says,
Bonus question for complementarian churches: If there are no female teaching voices in seminary, how do we expect the pastors graduating not to shepherd a church with a distinctly male culture? If men and women are distinct sexes, how do we train pastors to preach for and shepherd both men and women in their congregations? How do we expect them to value the female voice if they are told they should not learn from them in seminary? (235)
Byrd thinks pastors need women seminary professors in order to preach, shepherd, and value women in their churches. I, for one, do not see the logic here. Pastors have mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters in their lives, but that is not enough for Byrd. Pastors need non-pastor women to train them.
Byrd’s Response to Critics
There have already been some good reviews of Byrd’s work, and I have the advantage here of having read her responses. And let me say that I do not think Byrd’s responses reflect well on her. Jonathan Masters compiled a list of questions for Byrd, yet she thought it was odd that after reading her book, “the first question” some men asked her “is about ontological authority and submission inherent in men and women.” Why is this odd when Byrd wrote a book critiquing complementarianism and then does not provide an alternative explanation of the Bible’s teaching about male authority and female submission? She acts like she did nothing to provoke anyone and has nothing to explain. She then says she is only “considering” whether or not to answer the other questions, even though many relate to comments in her book.
Andy Naselli wrote a long but helpful critique of Byrd’s book. One thing to highlight is that Naselli criticized Byrd for not discussing 1 Timothy 2:8-15. Byrd responded that this text is only relevant to “ordination and corporate worship,” so she did not need to address it since her book is “about discipleship and what laypeople do.” She added, “Now, I do realize that some do not interpret these verses in the context of corporate worship, but I do, so it wasn’t a relevant text for me within the context of my writing.”
It is a possible interpretation that 1 Timothy 2:8-15 is concerned primarily with women teaching or exercising authority over men in the context of corporate worship, as Byrd claims. However, it is noteworthy that she felt no need to defend this narrow view in her book on men and women, even after claiming that women should be teaching Sunday school to men (233). Moreover, even if 1 Timothy 2 only specifically concerns women’s behavior in corporate worship, it does not follow that it has no other application to men and women in other teaching settings or beyond.
It is significant that Paul bases his prohibition on women teaching or exercising authority over men on Adam’s creation priority and Eve’s deception (1 Timothy 2:12-14). The creation order basis has led many theologians of greater repute than Byrd to make inferences in other areas, exemplified in Calvin’s view that 1 Timothy 2 bars women from ruling in civil government—“woman, who by nature (that is, by the ordinary law of God) is formed to obey; for γυναικοκρατία (the government of women) has always been regarded by all wise persons as a monstrous thing.”
Conclusion
Aimee Byrd’s Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood carries a provocative title aimed at the 1991 complementarian book, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Yet Byrd’s is mostly an empty title, as she does not substantially interact with that book or other books by complementarians. Instead, she claims complementarians ignore discipleship. She then surveys biblical passages about women in the Bible (“gynocentric interruptions”) that do nothing to undermine complementarianism, all the while ignoring the most important passage on the subject (1 Timothy 2:8-15). Most of her criticism of complementarians centers around ESS.
Byrd’s book is filled with lots of quotations and citations that come across as an attempt to impress the reader, but few actually support her thesis or help to form a coherent argument. Sadly, she makes many egalitarian claims and cites egalitarian authors positively throughout the book. Yet when critics ask Byrd to answer questions about exactly what she believes about men and women, she takes offense and refuses to answer.
This book is published by Zondervan, so no one should have expected a defense of conservative gender roles. Yet being a member of a conservative Reformed denomination (OPC) and working for a conservative Reformed organization (Reformation21.org), this is a sad commentary on the state of Western Christianity. Despite her claim that only men can be pastors, Byrd consistently pushes her readers in the direction of feminism. I do not know how influential this book will be, but it is so poorly reasoned that it should not sway those seriously considering these issues. Regardless, Byrd’s book should serve as evidence of just how strong a foothold feminism and egalitarianism have inside the church, even “conservative” Reformed churches.
Postscript
On June 22, 2020, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, which hosts Reformation21.org, released a letter stating that they had parted ways with Aimee Byrd.
[1]Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More than 100 Disputed Questions (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2004), 140.
[2] Wayne Grudem, Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism: Biblical Responses to the Key Questions (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2006), 62.
[3] Kathy Keller, Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 21: “Stated the way we do at Redeemer: anything that an unordained man is allowed to do, a woman is also allowed to do.”
