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Contact: Madison Trammel, Christianity Today, 630-260-6200 ext 4237, mtrammel@christianitytoday.com
CAROL STREAM, Ill., May 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- In a unique
article titled "Wounds of a Friend," authors John Koessler and Sarah Sumner
critique the views and attitudes of those who share their respective positions
on gender roles in the church. Koessler examines those who agree with his views
on limiting women's leadership roles in the church while Sumner critiques those
who share her belief that women should serve in any and every leadership role
within the church.
Koessler questions the biblical accuracy of the complementarian assumption that
a woman's "highest calling" is to be a wife and mother, and suggests that, "Complementarians
need to recover a fully biblical view of women—and of handling theological
disagreement."
Sumner believes many Egalitarians who believe that men and women should be
treated equally in the church mistakenly "appeal more to political liberal
thought than to the Scriptures," and suggests they "should rely more on careful
exegesis and less on political ideologies."
Christianity Today editor Madison Trammel says, "Fresh and counter-intuitive,
this article demonstrates a welcome humility that has too often been lacking on
both sides of the ongoing gender-war debate. John Koessler and Sarah Sumner's
essays make a true contribution to the discussion by calling both sides to
repentance and greater faithfulness to scriptural counsel."
John Koessler is chair of the pastoral studies department at Moody Bible
Institute and author of A Stranger in the House of God.
Sarah Sumner is professor of theology and ministry at the Graduate School of
Theology at Azusa Pacific University and author of Men and Women in the Church.
This article appears in the June issue of Christianity Today magazine.
Christianity Today, the world's leading religious
current issues publication covering the people, events, and ideas that shape the
evangelical movement, was founded by Billy Graham in 1956.