Category Archives: women’s experience

Press Release: New Book–New Approach to an Old Issue

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An Imprint of Sulis International
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
1 July 2017 | Los Angeles

Highfield Takes a Unique Perspective on Women in Leadership for Conservative Churches

Ron Highfield. Four Views on Women and Church Leadership: Should Bible-Believing (Evangelical) Churches Appoint Women Preachers, Pastors, Elders, and Bishops? Keledei Publishing, 2017. Pbk ISBN: 978-1-946849-08-3. eBook ISBN: 978-1-946849-09-0. 112pp.

Should conservative churches appoint women to the offices traditionally reserved for men? Many writers are calling for such changes; others oppose them. Are these proposals inspired by a deeper understanding of the gospel of Christ as their defenders claim? Or, are they inspired by contemporary secular philosophies as their opponents allege? Ron Highfield explores these and other questions in Four Views on Women and Church Leadership. In this book, Highfield stages a discussion in which three fictitious characters explain and defend their viewpoints and critique opposing views. The three views are Secular Feminism, Evangelical Egalitarianism, and New Complementarianism. In a fourth view, Highfield charges that the entire debate is based on a defective view of the church. He challenges the gratuitous assumptions that make the discussion necessary and meaningful: the church is a public institution, the ministry is a profession like other professions, and believers assemble to experience a performance. This book’s brevity, non-technical nature, and its questions for discussion at the end of each chapter make it ideal for private study, small group discussions, Sunday school classes, and undergraduate courses.

Endorsements for Four Views on Women and Church Leadership

”Ron Highfield has given a fair statement of different views, their strengths and weaknesses, on the important and controversial topic of female-male relations.  His work is a reminder that more is at stake than the correct interpretation and application of Biblical texts, as important as those are.  The theology of human nature has philosophical and practical implications for individual human life, the future of the human race, and human society at large.  Out of the countless books and articles on women in the church, this book for its sound common sense and Biblical and theological depth is a must read.”

—Everett Ferguson, Professor Emeritus, Abilene Christian University

”This book is an interesting treatment of the various viewpoints concerning women as leaders in the church.  It may surprise you and make you think differently about the issue.  It may also help you better define your own feelings about the issue.  I highly recommend it.”

—Jane Petty, Dickson, TN

”I learned from both Major League Baseball and Orthopaedic Surgery that the importance of following soundly established principles and best practices cannot be underestimated.  The contemporary church is embroiled in a battle with our dominant Western culture in no less significant ways than was the primitive and early church with its culture.  Professor Ron Highfield cleverly investigates the contemporary church-culture relationship by examining the current debate concerning the proper and acceptable role of women in the practice, preaching and leadership of today’s church. Ron uses an imaginary debate between three fictitious characters as a literary device to tease out the issues involved.  Each of these characters represents a different contemporary position and idea on the role of women in today’s church.  In the imaginary debate, he allows the reader to work through the issues and principles that are involved.   The perceptive reader will see that the issues are fundamentally very simple; yet, they are profoundly important for today’s church.  This very readable “little book” explores the nature of being human, the church and its authority.  It allows the reader to see that progressive culture is fundamentally attacking one of the bedrocks of the church—especially, the inspired and authoritative Scripture.  The role of women within the church is a symptom of the problem; it is not the problem or diagnosis.  This is an important treatise for the church to read and understand.”

—Gail E. Hopkins, MD, PhD

Availability of Four Views on Women and Church Leadership

Four Views on Women and Church Leadership is available now in paperback and eBook at retailers worldwide.

To order, and for more information, visit https://sulisinternational.com/product/four-views-highfield/.

To request review copies, visit https://sulisinternational.com/request-review-copy/

About the Author. Ron Highfield (PhD, Rice University) is Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University, Malibu, California. He is the author of Great is the Lord: Theology for the Praise of God (Eerdmans, 2008), God, Freedom & Human Dignity: Embracing a God-Centered Identity in a Me-Centured Culture (Intervarsity Press, 2013), The Faithful Creator: Affirming Creation and Providence in an Age of Anxiety. (Intervarsity Press, 2015), and a contributor to Four Views on Divine Providence (Zondervan, 2011).

About Keledei Publications. An imprint of Sulis International, Keledei has been publishing non-fiction titles in spirituality, practical theology, Bible studies, ministry, and the Christian life. These works offer high-quality resources for individual Christians, the church, and those with interest in practical religion and faith. Keledei Publications also offers reprints of works in those areas, especially older titles that are not readily available in print or eBook form.
For information on submitting manuscripts, visit [https://sulisinternational.com/submit-a-manuscript/].

For more, contact Sulis International.
publications@sulisinternational.com
www.sulisinternational.com
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Three Views on Women in Leadership: A Hyperlinked Index

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A reader of this blog requested that I compile an index that organizes and hyperlinks all the posts in my recent series on the debate between secular feminism, evangelical egalitarianism and Christian Neo-Patriarchy. This series ran through December 2016 and January 2017. I am in the process of turning this series into a book with the tentative title Three Views on Women in Leadership. I am considering giving last names to Sarah, Gloria and Abraham. I am open to suggestions. I am also open to suggestions on anything I need to add to the book to make it better.

I changed the order from the way they appeared onthe blog. Now they are ordered so that the responses follow immediately after the presentations. If you wish, you can forward this page to a friend who would like to read them all together in this new order.

 

Gloria Explains and Defends Secular Feminism

Sarah Responds to Gloria

Abraham Responds to Gloria (Part one)

Abraham Responds to Gloria (Part Two)

Abraham Responds to Gloria (Part Three)

Sarah Explains and Defends Evangelical Egalitarianism

Gloria Responds to Sarah

Abraham Responds to Sarah (Part One)

Abraham Explains and Defends Christian Neo-Patriarchy (Part One)

Abraham Explains and Defends Christian Neo-Patriarchy (Part Two)

Gloria Responds to Abraham

Sarah Responds to Abraham

The Myths of “Male Privilege” and “Women’s Experience”

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 Speakers:

Gloria (Secular Feminist)

Sarah (Evangelical Egalitarian)

Abraham (Neo-Patriarch)

Moderator (Neutral)

 

Moderator: Welcome to the eighth session of our dialogue on the relationship between men and women in society, church and family. This evening Abraham will conclude his critique of secular feminism.  Abraham, could you make your next two points a bit briefer? We are running short of time.

Abraham: Okay. But you are the one who asked me to address issues I had not planned to speak about.

 Moderator: Touché!

 

 “Women’s Experience”

 Abraham: (2) Gloria asserts that “women’s experience” is an authoritative source of truth. According to her, when women feel oppressed and think they are being treated unfairly, men should accept their perspective as a revelation of truth and acquiesce to their demands. Sarah agrees. I disagree.

If the subjective feeling of being unjustly treated is a moral norm, why limit it to women’s experience? Men have experience too! And if women’s experience can be used to instruct men about their moral blindness, why can’t men’s experience instruct women in areas where women are morally blind? If women’s experience can refute men’s views of women, why can’t men’s experience refute women’s views of men? If women can insist that men accept women’s experience as a revelation of truth and acquiesce to their demands, why can’t men insist that women accept men’s experience as a revelation of truth and acquiesce to their demands?

Unless there is an objective standard of moral truth, justice and goodness, appeals to experience lead to a stalemate. One person’s desires are set against another’s with no objective standard by which to judge between them. But if there is an objective moral standard, neither women’s experience nor men’s experience can be used as a moral norm. At best, they are beginning places for a discussion about how to achieve a mutually acceptable approximation to justice and goodness in this relationship.

 “Male Privilege”

 (3) Gloria asserts that:

 Secular feminists demand that every tradition, ideology, theology, or philosophy that justifies male privilege be rejected as false, anti-human, and evil.

Gloria here begs the question. She assumes that “male privilege,” that is, giving a right to men that is not given to women, is always wrong. But this is the question to be decided! It cannot be assumed! I can be brief in my response to this assertion, because I have already demonstrated in point (1) above [Posted on January 06] that in some situations giving men a privilege not given to women is the rational and right thing to do. Hence male privilege is not always wrong! We need to deliberate in society, church and family about when it is appropriate. There are no easy answers!

One last point. The whole discussion focuses on male privilege. What about female privilege? Aren’t women given some rights withheld from (or irrelevant to) men? Don’t women want to be treated differently from men in some cases? But if male privilege is always wrong, female privilege is always wrong as well. Does anyone think women would be better off in a society where they must compete with men under the exact same set of rules?

Moderator: Thank you Abraham for your thoughts. Next time Gloria and Abraham will present analyses and criticisms of Sarah’s presentation of evangelical egalitarianism.

Programming note: Gloria’s response to Sarah’s presentation of evangelical feminism will be posted on Friday, January 13. The title of that post is “Is the Bible irretrievably Misogynous?”