Product Description

Evangelicals stand divided in their view of women in the church.

On one side stand complementarians, arguing the full worth of women but assigning them to differing roles. On the other side stand egalitarians, arguing that the full worth of women demands their equal treatment and access to leadership roles. Is there a way to mend the breach and build consensus?

Sarah Sumner thinks there is. Avoiding the pitfalls of both radical feminism and reactionary conservatism, she traces a new path through the issues--biblical, theological, psychological and practical--to establish and affirm common ground. Arguing that men and women are both equal and distinct, Sumner encourages us to find ways to honor and benefit from the leadership gifts of both. Men and Women in the Church is a book for all who want a fresh and hope-filled look at a persistent problem.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83972 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
Sumner, the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Illinois), is chair of the department of ministry and associate professor of ministry and theology at the Haggard School of Theology, Azusa Pacific University (Azusa, California).

Customer Reviews

A Happy End to the Spin
Normally, when a book has 26 reviews, I am content to let writing a review pass. However, this one is special. I was dragged into the gender debates a few months ago kicking and screaming. I am a seminary graduate, though I don't pastor. The church leaders sought my opinion because of my training and experience. Hence, I got introduced to the fight. The theological vertigo that I experienced was only surpassed by the vertigo I got when I decided to find the definitive answer to the theories of the second coming, while in seminary.

This book is different. She interacts with both sides. Unlike the shallow belaborings and "interpretations" of the chief spokespeople for both sides, she has obviously read some theology. Although she doesn't flaunt it, she has apparently read the Church Fathers more than she indicates. She is comfortable to go in new directions and respectfully bow and put her hand over her mouth in the presence of mystery. This is something that both sides fail to do. What really impressed me was her handling of the headship subject. This has been a big and heated debate that has drug the Trinity into the fray and sought to confirm various models of hierarchy and equality. She acknowledges the mystery while giving, in my opinion, a very excellent alternative.

Her thinking is called fuzzy in earlier reviews, but I find that difficult to understand. When you are dealing with the immanent Trinity as revealed in the Incarnation, what you can't say is much more extensive than what you know. She says what is appropriate (metaphor, she calls it) and recognizes the limits of knowledge and expression.

This is the one book we need. I wish I had found out about it 4 or 5 books ago. I have left it with an appreciation of what God has done in Creation and Redemption and what my responsibilities are towards my wife as head. Thanks muchly.

a challenging book, no matter what your position
I loved this frustrating book, mainly because it challenged me. Our community worked through the issue of women in leadership and found this book an extreme help- I've bought it for my elders/pastors and recommended it to many people.

Sumner, with a high view of scripture, takes both the egalitarians (women can fill any role in the church/no difference whatsoever between the sexes) and the complementarians (women can fill any role in the church but pastor or elder/creation order determines roles) to task. Both sides have much to learn from this book.

Contrary to some reviews, it's not fuzzy. It's simply non-linear. I seriously doubt Sumner would consider herself a "postmodern," but in many ways she writes like one, introducing a subject, moving on to another relevent issue, circling back to the first subject... the book reads like a series of circles, but ultimately gets us where we need to be- a discussion of the biblical texts dealing with women in ministry. It was amazing to realize that something I was reading had been "set up" by something else 2 chapters earlier. I can see how if you want a straight-forward, scholarly approach this would be maddening, but it was one of the things that helped make this book so appealing to me.

This book was instrumental in helping me reassess my position on this issue. If you want a biblical framework for thinking through the issues of headship, women in leadership and interpretation of tough passages like 1 Timothy 2, this is an excellent book.

Sensitive to biblical metaphors
I require all my students taking "The Role of Women in Ministry" at Dallas Theological Seminary to read eight books on the subject from a variety of viewpoints. Whether or not they agree with all Sumner says, most have ranked this book as their favorite on the list. Its greatest strength, in their collective opinion, is Sumner's treatment of the husband as head of the wife (not of the family or the home) in Ephesians 5. This flows from her respect for the apostle Paul's head/body metaphor, which emphasizes oneness rather than an org-chart metaphor, which emphasizes hierarchy. Head/body; sacrificial love/submission. Sumner soundly argues that the wife is not told to submit to her husband's headship any more than the husband is told to sacrificially love his wife's bodyship.

S.L. Glahn, co-author, The Infertility Companion