Recovering FROM Biblical Manhood and Womanhood??

Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose by Aimee Byrd

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


A poorly argued book, with a few valid points.

This review is a little late – seems this controversy has already blown over. But I wanted to actually read the book, before commenting.


SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK
Byrd has her systematic theology straight, when it comes to the Trinity and the church. But she misfires when reacting to patriarchy and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (hereafter CBMW. John Piper and Wayne Grudem wrote and edited “Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” in 1991, and co-founded CBMW around the same time.)

I do not know Byrd’s personal story, but from reading this book, and listening to her on the Mortification of Spin podcast for a few years, she obviously has a chip on her shoulder against the self-conscious assertion of male headship in overly patriarchal, conservative churches. I have not read Byrd’s book about men and women being friends, in which she rejects the Billy Graham, now Mike Pence rule of a man never meeting alone with a woman not your wife.

Byrd shows she can read the Bible Christo-centrically, but melds her reading with a feminine (-ist?) reading that is sometimes insightful, but usually stretches the text to make a point. She quotes mainline egalitarians like Richard Bauckham liberally – an intended pun, as they are liberal indeed – as her intellectual ammunition against complementarianism (the view that the Bible lays out distinct and different roles for men and women). Byrd even tries to refute the use of “role” as a modern invention, which is bizarre.

Byrd equates the Eternal Subordination of the Son Trinitarian error with the CBMW movement. This is unfair. What about John Piper? Her critique that CBMW is allowing erroneous teaching is a fair point, but misses the role of parachurch organizations.
Byrd does not allow a parachurch group to organize itself around a second order doctrinal issue. CBMW must repudiate ESS (pages 120-121). But there are many such groups out there (Promise Keepers, Right to Life, etc.) that do good work and rightly include “co-belligerents.” Why does Byrd not inveigh as strongly against Right to Life for working with Roman Catholics? Because she is really opposed to CBMW’s goal: recovering biblical manhood and womanhood. Thus her title.

Byrd thinks CBMW calls for Christians to pursue gender-specific virtues, not specified in the Bible. She affirms there are 2 gendered ways of being human, but insists we should not force it. This ignores Ephesians 5, which she never deals with. She has to twist the plain meaning of Titus 2 to make this point. And it loses the Pauline perspective: “you are justified, now act like it. God made you a man, now act like one.” This is not inherently legalistic, as her theological friend Michael Horton would tell her. She is right, though, to instinctively react against legalistic tendencies in the patriarchal movement. There are real problems there, but Byrd does not have the right solution.

Byrd sees CBMW’s view as reducing men and women to single roles: authority and submission, which is “THE creation distinction between man and woman” (emphasis Byrd’s). I’m not sure this is fair – CBMW is seeking to recover that aspect, which the larger culture now rejects. Not to claim it is THE distinction. It seems Byrd actually rejects it herself, or is tempted to, in reaction against CBMW.

It IS a fair criticism of Byrd’s to say that marriages have suffered where the wife needed to share her wisdom, and the husband needed to listen to her. But instead they follow patriarchal counsel and artificially act in ONLY authority and submission roles. I’ve seen that personally several times. But Byrd doesn’t argue this point well at all. If someone can point me to a source that does, I’d be grateful.

Byrd argues that God made Adam first, then Eve, which means she is his telos (Greek for goal, or end) (127). But that turns 1 Timothy 2:12-15 on its head, a passage Byrd never even addresses. Woman was made for man, not man for the woman, that passage says clearly, while also clearly asserting that this is not some culturally relative custom, but built into the order of creation.

Is 1 Corinthians 14:33-34 just about refraining from uninspired speech that disrupts the prophecy going on? Why single out the women, then?

Byrd’s point about the parachurch world in chapter 6 is fairly helpful. Often the parachurch tail wags the church dog, when it should be the other way around. This chapter helped my own self-awareness as a pastor: what are the parachurch voices to which I listen, and why? Do they matter more to me than biblical orthodoxy, my pastoral work and calling, and the voices of my pastoral colleagues?


RESPONSE TO THE BOOK
The controversy around this book represents a discouraging low point in the ongoing discussion of the roles of men and women over the last 30 years.

It is revealing that Zondervan published this book, not Crossway or P&R. Byrd self-identifies as a staunchly orthodox and confessional (OPC!) church-person. But the publishers associated with that orbit did not take her book on. With good reason. Who she quotes and the argument she makes fits much better in the Eerdman’s/Baker/Zondervan orbit (less interested in conforming to confessional and complementarian lines).

I’ve been extremely disappointed in the response to Byrd’s book from “my side.” (I agree with the Danvers Statement, CBMW’s main statement.) Shane Anderson, previously unknown to me, appears just unhinged. The Genevan Commons Facebook group behaved immaturely and meanly toward Byrd, at the least, and won’t apologize, it seems. They seem to adopt Trumpian tactics that the best way to refute your ideological opponent is to ridicule them. Even our more mature voices have partially justified their behavior: “If she wants to enter the arena of theological debate, she’s gotta take criticism like a man.” This only proves Byrd’s point that complementarian advocates tend to wrongly marginalize or exclude women from theological conversation, and put them down to keep them “in their place.” Maybe the “man’s world” of theological discourse could benefit from including women. It’s no blow to true Christian masculinity when someone points out a real biblical violation in a group of Christian men behaving badly toward a woman. The church needs to behave better than this in our disagreements.

We should have places in our churches to foster healthy biblical masculinity, and places of co-ed discipleship and theological discussion. We shouldn’t have to polarize between those pursuing masculinity (Fight, Laugh, Feast!), and the milder PCA version of complementarianism (Mortification of Spin!). Let Christians come to their own convictions and practices on the details between these, instead of setting up camps and lobbing water ballons at each other, when the affects of Bostock loom upon us all. But Aimee Byrd seems to be leaving the complementarian orbit altogether.

Much better criticism of the book has come from the current CBMW president, Denny Burk. 
https://equip.sbts.edu/article/way-st...

Mark Jones' review is also very good.
https://calvinistinternational.com/2020/05/11/review-of-aimee-byrds-recovering-from-biblical-manhood-and-womanhood/

And John Piper still advocates a sane view of the biblical roles of men and women, it seems to me. My read is that he has integrated Byrd's best criticisms, here for example:

July 13, 2020
https://www.desiringgod.org/interview...

“Biblical manhood and womanhood in the relationship of marriage does not consist in a mere list of things you may or may not say, things you may or may not do, but rather in a biblically informed, Spirit-shaped disposition and demeanor that reflects a man’s unique calling to be the head of the home, and a woman’s unique calling to gladly support that calling of the man by coming alongside him with her unique, indispensable womanly gifts.”

I honestly don’t know after reading Byrd’s book if she would agree with Piper or not. My read is that she is objecting a reasonable and biblical complementarian view because of patriarchal abuses of it which she has suffered or observed personally.



View all my reviews