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

by Aimee Byrd

While evangelicalism dukes it out about who can be church leaders, the rest of the 98% of us need to be well equipped to see where we fit in God's household and why that matters. Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is a resource to help church leaders improve the culture of their church and disciple men and women in their flock to read, understand, and apply Scripture to our lives in the church. Until both men and women grow in their understanding of their relationship to Scripture, there will continue to be tension between the sexes in the church. Church leaders need to be engaged in thoughtful critique of the biblical manhood and womanhood movement and the effects it has on their congregation.

Do men and women benefit equally from God's word? Are they equally responsible in sharpening one another in the faith and passing it down to the next generation? While radical feminists claim that the Bible is a hopelessly patriarchal construction by powerful men that oppresses women, evangelical churches simply reinforce this teaching when we constantly separate men and women, customizing women's resources and studies according to a culturally based understanding of roles. Do we need men's Bibles and women's Bibles, or can the one, holy Bible guide us all? Is the Bible, God's word, so male-centered and authored that women need to create their own resources to relate to it? No! And in it, we also learn from women. Women play an active role as witnesses to the faith, passing it on to the new generations.

This book explores the feminine voice in Scripture as synergistic with the dominant male voice. Through the women, we often get the story behind the story--take Ruth for example, or the birth of Christ through the perspective of Mary and Elizabeth in Luke. Aimee fortifies churches in a biblical understanding of brotherhood and sisterhood in God's household and the necessity of learning from one another in studying God's word.

The troubling teaching under the rubric of "biblical manhood and womanhood" has thrived with the help of popular Biblicist interpretive methods. And Biblicist interpretive methods ironically flourish in our individualistic culture that works against the "traditional values" of family and community that the biblical manhood and womanhood movement is trying to uphold. This book helps to correct Biblicist trends in the church today, affirming that we do not read God's word alone, we read it within our interpretive covenant communities--our churches. Our relationship with God's word affects our relationship with God's people, and vice versa. The church is the school of Christ, commissioned to discipleship. The responsibility of every believer, men and women together, is being active and equal participants in and witnesses to the faith--the tradents of faith.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction, Christian, Christianity, Religion, Womens, Christian Living

235 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 5, 2020

About the author

Aimee Byrd is just an ordinary mom of three who has also been a martial arts student, coffee shop owner, and Bible study teacher. Author of Housewife Theologian, she now blogs about theology and the Christian life and cohosts The Mortification of Spin podcast.

Reviews

[Matthew Manchester · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've written too much and I still haven't written all I want to say about this book, so please forgive this mess of a review.

SUMMARY

Before I begin, I'd imagine Byrd would agree with the authors of Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women when they state their beliefs regarding the ordained office:

"We accept that the ordained office of pastor is limited to qualified men alone; we believe that husbands are to be the leading servants in their homes and that women and wives are to help pastors and husbands in their calling."

So this book is not an egalitarian book.

The other thing I should mention is that Byrd is a member of an OPC church. She's deeply confessional. She was actually the person who taught me what being confessional means and why/how to be confessional. I'll mention why this is important (IMO) a little later.

In reviewing this book, my mind made parallels to my review of Dr. Michael Brown's book Playing With Holy Fire: A Wake-Up Call to the Pentecostal-Charismatic Church. Brown's book is a biblical and critical look at the charismatic movement while Byrd's book is a biblical and critical look at the biblical manhood and womanhood movement, books, and particulary concerning the parachurch ministry, The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). Also, Brown's book focuses on mainly four areas of concern while I found Byrd's book focusing on four main concerns too.

Overall, how I saw them, these concerns were:
1. Systemic sexism and dismissal
2. Trinitarian errors
3. Parachurch concerns
4. Biblicist interpretations

Byrd does a good job speaking to each of these concerns. However, these concerns are not the aim of her book. Her goal is to help the reader see how all of these things affect discipleship in the local church. If men only disciple and learn from other men, and women only disciple and learn from other women, then all we have is a disjointed church and we're not discipling believers as they should be (or as well as we can).

THE GOOD

I want to break down each area of concern and then discuss her overall goal regarding discipleship.

Systemic sexism and dismissal of women. This isn't a #metoo or #churchtoo point only. Byrd talks about how women are not listened to for their doctrine, instruction, or wisdom, in almost every area of our churches. More importantly, in many churches, women aren't even asked. Even outside the four walls of the church, women endure being told to quit their careers, and make sacrifices for the husband, etc. This might be the path of some women, but it is not a requirement for all.

It wasn't until I read this book that I heard about "the female voice" in scripture. Now I might be able to chalk that up to my lack of theological education but I mentioned in my review of Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women:

"It made me severely angry. [...] I've been in the Calvinist and Reformed world for over six years, not to mention another six years before that of listening to Reformed preachers, and this is the first time I've read/listened to anyone talk about the worth/dignity of women extensively."

How could that be? I listened to thousands of hours of sermons, read untold blog posts, highlighted my way through so many books, and yet I can't remember anyone (especially within this generation!) who had written or spoken extensively about the worth & value of women. Yet, when this lack of attention is pointed out, many leaders will point to their few articles about it or the 5-10 minutes where they mentioned it once in a message. But here is my question to those leaders: Can you talk about the worth and dignity of women for an HOUR? No shooting the bull, without fluffing it up, can you talk about women in the Bible and their worth and dignity for a solid hour. If so, have you?

Let me be clear too: denying any position in the local church besides teaching elder (or preaching pastor), on the basis on gender, is sexism. Honestly, if Jesus and the apostles didn't hold all these other things back from women, then I find it hard not to call it sin if one withholds the ability. This is not "functional egalitarianism". Rather, it's "not adding to Scripture".

Sexism can manifest itself in our doctrines, study Bibles, counseling, policies, and practices. But the most common way sexism manifests is in our implications. We can tell what someone thinks is most important by how much, and how positively, they talk about that thing (in comparsion to all the other things). Now apply this to the words "authority and submission" in most American churches today. That's why women are saying there is an issue. They are being undervalued and underused, not to mention underdiscipled, tremendously. There is not a "female voice" in many of our churches.

Trinitarian errors. This is one of the biggest themes in her book: CBMW has gotten the Trinity wrong. The Trinity isn't some secondary doctrine (like complementarianism is, at best). It's a primary doctrine and even slight changes to its doctrine is heresy. I know that word is used a lot by discernment ministries, but this use of the word is historical and true. Trinitarian heresies are probably the biggest type of heresy that the Church speaks out against.

So when Grudem, Strachen, and co started pushing EFS/ESS doctrine (eternal submission of the Son) as an ontological (meaning inherent) nature parallel between the Trinity and male/female roles and relationships, Byrd both then-and-now hits back hard. I've read the articles from the whole debate. It was a mess, but from the beginning, women were speaking out against this doctrine. They saw the implications of EFS/ESS doctrine, while Grudem & Strachen saw what was gained if they used the doctrine to help ground their complementarianism beliefs.

But here is where I bring back Byrd's confessionalism. She asks why are we believing preachers and teachers regarding what they say about the Trinity when they hold to little-to-no historic confessions or creeds? (Note: The CBMW leadership would say they hold to the Nicene Creed, but that is not our only historic creed or confession about the Trinity.) Why are we letting ministries, whose founding members and leadership do not hold to a large historic confession, create new theological statements for the global church? Which brings me to...

Parachurch concerns. Aimee's best section is reserved for her concerns about parachurch ministries like CBMW or TGC (The Gospel Coalition). Her concerns aren't just the theology of these ministries, but in the primacy of these ministries when it comes to discipleship. She's troubled by the outsourcing of discipleship from the local church to these ministries instead. This is a criticism of churches who do this and for the ministries who don't push people into their local church enough.

She's also troubled about the lack of accountability reagrding these ministries, especially since they have so much influence and weight within the Reformed community, and even the entire American church. Using the ESS/EFS debate, who is able to hold these leaders accountable and demand repentance? Do their local churches have the ability to remove them from these organizations or keep them from speaking at their events?

But again, I think the best question Aimee raised about parachurch ministries is why are they are the gatekeepers to both theological statements and discipleship (via books, conferences, materials, etc) when most of them are non-confessional. Byrd here is gracious but I wish she would have talked a little deeper about this and how many of these issues are being caused by non-confessional Baptist leaders. (Overall, I don't think non-confessional Baptist organizations should be leading the charge in making theological statements. That is not where you want autonomy to spread its leaves. The EFS/ESS debate should show us that.)

Biblicist interpretations. Byrd mentions:

"Biblicists righly uphold the authority of scripture, but often read the Bible with narrow, flat lens of interpretation, zooming in on the words in the texts themselves while missing the history, context, and confessing tradition of the faith. Biblicists emphazize proof texting over a comprehensive biblical theology. What often happens unintentionally is that the Biblicist readers become their own authority, since they often don't notice they are also looking their their own lens of preconceived theological assumptions."

If you don't think we all do this, then you probably do it a lot. It happens more than we want to admit in many biblical manhood and womenhood teachings. Enough said.

Now back to discipleship.

I loved how Byrd kept returning and centering her focus on discipleship. This could easily been a church gender roles book. Rather, it's something better.

Byrd has admitted that all of her books lead to the next. If you've seen or read her other books, you'll know that discipleship has been her thrust all along. See all of her book titles:
Housewife Theologian: How the Gospel Interrupts the Ordinary
Theological Fitness: Why We Need a Fighting Faith
No Little Women: Equipping All Women in the Household of God
Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity
Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose

Note: I would say that Why Can't We Be Friends sets a huge foundation for this book and I would recommend reading Why Can't We Be Friends before reading this one. Why Can't We Be Friends is my favorite book from Byrd so far due to the impact and launching point it creates.

Churches are better and more truly discipled when both genders are in dialogue and unity with and between each other. Things like sexism and bad theology aren't just hurting women. They're hindering discipleship.

THE CHALLENGES

The biggest issue I had with this book is that Byrd uses and relys too much on historical imagination. I don't have a problem with minimal historical imagination, but there was too much of it in this book for me. There were some sections that I really loved (Ruth) and then there were places that I thought Byrd took too big a leap. However, all these things should keep us thinking through these Bible stories instead of viewing them from our 21st century lens, so I thank Byrd for giving me a different viewpoint on several Bible stories.

Also, for me, the yellow wallpaper example fell a little flat for me. I understood what she met, but I thought there were better metaphors to use.

CONCLUSION

I think Byrd has raised legitimate issues and causes for concern. Her sections on parachurch concerns and Trinitarian doctrine are worth reading the book alone.

I saw one reviewer state that everything in this book has been written before. But that's the problem. It means we're not listening. And if we are realizing "it's been said before", then we're intentionally not listening.

Don't be like that. Read this book and understand that (what CBMW calls) "broad complementarianism" (or any kind) isn't a primary doctrine of the faith, especially since it adds to what scripture says. More importantly, read this book and see what we are missing from discipleship.

Four stars.

Side-note to my Reformed followers: How many books do we have to read before we realize that there are certain beliefs and connections in our reformed theology that allow for abusers and racists to stay hidden and thrive?

[Todd Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recovering from BM&W is difficult to read at times, but very important. Complementarians should listen. We may not agree with all of her points. All of her concerns may not be true of any one church. We might wish that she had looked at other texts. We might find some of her applications to be unhelpful. Nevertheless, she deserves an audience and it would be arrogant and harmful to ourselves to dismiss her. Again, we should listen and then do some soul-searching and critical evaluation of our own practices. Is it possible that our church practices are more cultural than biblical? Personally, I found the book helpful and thought-provoking. I did not agree with many of her arguments. I felt that she often fell into the common trap of being more generous to those to the left of her than to the right of her. Nevertheless, I would encourage complementarians to read her book before you read the reviews. (There are a number of good critical reviews to choose from.) And by all means, read her book before you comment on it. That should be standard practice and go without saying.

A word about reaction to her book: I am troubled by the nasty responses to her book by some. (Yes - I followed my advice and purposefully did not read actual reviews until I finished the book.) Now disagreement and critical engagement is not nasty per se. Aimee Byrd is a strong, intelligent human being, and she no doubt knew that when she wrote this book, there would be pushback. That is the nature of academic writing. I suspect she would be disappointed if her book were not critically engaged. But to merely dismiss her, and to do so because she is a woman, only makes her point for her. Resorting to ad hominem is not critical engagement. It is intellectually lazy and sub-Christian.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded down.

This is a difficult book to review. Even though Aimee Byrd's analysis is worth reading and thinking through, this book is a mixed bag from most denominational standpoints and biblical convictions. Also, the provocative title, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose, is fairly misleading. Based on the title and synopsis, I went into this book expecting that it would address how Christians can understand and deconstruct unbiblical gender stereotypes that have masqueraded as Christian discipleship. I hoped that this book would be a conversation starter and encouragement for the church to focus on discipleship into the image of Christ, rather than discipleship into the image of Chuck Norris and June Cleaver, but this is something else entirely.

If I could re-title this, I would call it Peeling Back the Yellow Wallpaper: The Status of Women in the Biblical History and the Church. That would give a much more accurate vision of the book's theme and contents, because it focuses on women's issues 99% of the time, using The Yellow Wallpaper as an analogy for how people can become blind to gender inequity because they are so used to the way that things are. This book addresses lots of important issues, and there is nothing wrong with a female-focused perspective, but since the terminology of "biblical manhood and womanhood" is much broader and encompasses much more than Byrd's focus here, I wish that her title and description provided a more accurate vision of the book.

The Author's View of the Issue

Aimee Byrd criticizes the way that many Christian leaders and resources have taught men and women to see themselves as beings with completely different core natures and static social roles. She cites alarming quotes from the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood that describe men as strong leaders and teach that women are subordinates who exist to affirm men's masculinity and prop up their strength and self-esteem. She provides firm argumentation from Scripture against this view of women, but does not take into account the different variations of complementarian views. Personally, even though I have a similar denominational background to Byrd, I have never encountered these extreme ideas within my church context and social circles, except as an example of what is not a biblical view. I don't understand why Byrd would present these views as the culture-defining norm for Christians without any nuance.

However, I am not accusing her of making a straw man argument. She never distorts the influential material that she cites, and she addresses ideas that are prevalent within some extremely conservative circles. The problem isn't that she addresses these extreme claims, but that she characterizes the entire concept of "biblical manhood and womanhood" according to a position that views women as completely subordinate to men and dependent upon them for their identity and mission. Because she focuses on dismantling an extreme ideology that most Christians already disagree with anyway, she fails to address many subtler, more socially acceptable permutations of problematic views, and unfairly characterizes people who hold to some role-based distinctions without the pervasive sexism of the view she criticizes.

What This Book Does Well

Even though Byrd oversimplifies a complex debate, she addresses a number of issues very well. I appreciate what she wrote about how important it is for pastors to learn to preach to their entire congregations instead of primarily directing their sermons to men with male-dominated sermon illustrations. She also addresses issues with Christian marketing, arguing that men and women read the same Bible, and that women don't need pretty study aids and sidebar essays about motherhood in order to get into Scripture. To illustrate this, she shares historical analysis about the role of women in biblical history, showing that women are already part of Scripture and don't need special Bibles now in order to connect with God's Word.

Byrd also shares great arguments about how important it is for discipleship to happen within the context of the local church. She argues that even though parachurch ministries accomplish great good, they should not become someone's interpretive community. Byrd urges churches to invest in their women and provide them with opportunities to serve and grow, and she challenges parachurch organizations to work through their often convoluted standards for female leadership in a context that doesn't require ordination.

Byrd has a robust view of what life in the local church should look like, and I appreciate her emphasis on how important it is for men and women to work together as brothers and sisters in Christ. One of my favorite parts of this book is the section about what sibling relationships were like in the ancient world, because this provides helpful context for what it means to be siblings in Christ. I appreciate how much historical research Byrd included in her helpful analysis of women's involvement in Israel's history, the early church, and Paul's ministry.

Gynocentric Interruptions?

However, Byrd adopts postmodern categories for understanding women's voices and involvement in the Bible. She characterizes women's appearances as "gynocentric interruptions," borrowing this phrase from a scholar and repeating it innumerable times. Her stated argument is that women have been part of Scripture all along, but because she presents women's stories as radical invasions into a male-dominated storyline, she does more to damage her argument than support it. Her language and focus imply that the Bible is a male book with occasional appearances by fabulous females, rather than the Word of God delivered for all the saints.

This is likely to bother the same complementarian believers whom she has already offended through her lack of nuance. Also, other Christians who are less decided about their own views of gender may still take issue with her interpretive lens, since it implies that the Bible is a story about us, not God's self-revelation. I understand why she specifically focused on women's contributions, but the way that she presented that material gave me pause, and I'm sure that other people will have issues with it as well. Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women, a similar book recently written by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Eric Schumacher, takes on a similar task of exploring women's contributions to Scripture, but it does so in a Christ-centered way. I could not help negatively comparing aspects of Byrd's book to that one.

The Ideal Audience?

Based on what I have said so far, someone might assume that this book is best suited for a nontraditional audience. However, many of Byrd's beliefs go against common tenants for progressive Christians. She holds to male-only ordination, firmly believes in the differentiation of the sexes, and opposes LGBT relationships and the redefinition of gender. I respect Byrd's willingness to hold to her convictions without adopting all the tenants of a particular camp, but because she alienates both sides of the debate through different elements of her beliefs and arguments, it is difficult to evaluate who this book is intended for.

Also, because Byrd frequently references specific teachings, controversies, and online debates that the average reader may not be aware of, people with different backgrounds may have a hard time following this. In some ways, it seems like she wrote this book primarily for the people who read her blog and follow her on Twitter, because it seems fine-tuned to a specific audience's shared awareness and specific concerns, instead of directed to the church at large. In my case, I was aware of some of the controversies that she wrote about, but I was oblivious to others, and I know that people who are less involved in her spheres will have an even harder time following the minutiae of debates that they may not even be aware of.

Conclusion

This book has many excellent elements. It addresses the role of women throughout Christian history, challenges laypeople and pastors to make their churches more equitable and hospitable to women and their varied gifts, and provides a robust vision of what discipleship should look like in the local church body. Byrd makes excellent points about issues in Christian culture that disproportionately effect women, but even though this book covers a variety of important topics and often does so well, the flaws in Byrd's approach and her narrow focus on particular contexts and controversies make this book a mixed bag. People who are interested in this book's topic will benefit from reading and evaluating it, but I can only recommend it with significant caveats.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Steve Hemmeke · Rating 2 out of 5]

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/20...

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.

[Trent Still · Rating 1 out of 5]

The long and short of this book is an argument for women to have a place in the teaching ‘ministry’ of the church, even over men. Byrd has some interesting and even helpful exegesis from certain passages, though most of it seems to be unoriginal to her. At the end of each section the question would always arise (not exactly in these words), “Why aren’t women allowed to teach men?”

There is, in my opinion, a constant theme in the book of denigrating the domestic role of women. It is throughout. I hope this isn’t intentional. The possibilities of certain passages regarding women being heavily commended becomes (almost) a pretext that unless women are doing those types of things they aren’t being honored.

As has been noted in regard to her other writings, it seems that grace either cancels out nature or nature is disregarded altogether. This becomes even more clear when you see her public response on Ref21 to some questions she received regarding these issues.

There are parts of this book that are downright interesting, and even helpful. But I do not believe her conclusions follow. Once more, they even seem to denigrate the ‘normal’ role of women, especially the domestic one.

[Jami Balmet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book! The title is a bit misleading though (or maybe a better word is confusing)!

The book is a critique of the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood movement which states that all women are subordinate to all men. She is a conservative evangelical who upholds scripture!

She argues that churches need to better find places for women to serve and to learn how to support them.

[Abby Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

Holy cow, what a mess this book was on so many levels:
1) it was just badly written. Every time I tried to explain her points or logic in a chapter to my husband it became a garbled, convoluted mess.
2) she seemed to be addressing fringe churches. Every time she got on her soapbox about how women are treated in church I lost all my ability to connect with her point. She acted like women are shut up in a dark room every Sunday. None of her complaints have ever been my experience. She's screaming and yelling almost incoherently about a problem that I'm not sure exists.
3) she makes a lot of assumptions and basis most of her conclusions on a tiny handful of verses that the church has always been unsettled on. She will start out grandly and deeply speaking of doctrine (some correctly and some incorrectly) and then twist it down to a petty pout about not getting to pass the offering plate.
4) she has caved to the world's definitions of female rights. This book uses such a convoluted amount of current, hot button lingo, and feminist ideas wrapped up in 'possible' interpratations. I'm pretty sure she's basically a feminist at this point. I kept just waiting to hear her say woman should be pastors and elders.
5) speaking of interpratations, she often chose whichever translation of the Bible suited her point.

At the end of this odd, long, convoluted, often wrong discourse addressed to some fringe churches out there, her basic conclusion was:
If you understand the Bible and Church History the way I do, anything a layman does in church a laywoman should get to do also.

Two final thoughts:
1) I fully reject complementarinsm based on EFS. I think it's dangerous. All women aren't called to submit to all men, nor is it my job to build up the ego of all men. I'm to submit to my husband. Then I submit to the other authorities in my life like the rest of humanity. But, I also don't disagree with every single thing Biblical Manhood and Womanhood put out. I just think you have to handle it carefully. I've never once in my church felt like a second class citizen because I'm a women.
2) I think a book like this could be a real thorn in the flesh for a pastor because it really teaches women to be discontent and nitpick everything their pastor does. I just see a woman taking this book and beating her pastor over the head with it cause he doesn't use enough female-centered illustrations. Really? That's what you're paying attention to during the preaching.

Ladies, we are quickly getting to the point of sounding like a bunch of petulant teenagers who are angry cause their brother got to do something we didn't. This is making us blind to all that we have and all we've been given. And, we need to stop complaining about not being taken seriously when we refuse to read good theology, train ourselves, and ask questions. We must remember that theology only makes our salvation richer and strive to grasp it before we complain about our pastor's illustrations.

[Darby Stouffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A big part of my life in recent years has been learning that things I would expect to be thoroughly uncontroversial, are, in fact, controversial.

This book is no exception.

This book is not a feminist Oracle, or a tome on how and why women should assume all power in the church.

This is a book about discipleship first, and confronting false assumptions and teachings second. Yes, about women in the church, but also about the Trinity, salvation, and more.

I find myself even further disturbed by the pushback this book and the author have both received than I did before reading it.

I recommend reading it with an open mind and heart. No, I did not agree with every single word. But I found it quite helpful and generated a lot of personal reflection and things to study further.

[Jeremy]

From Todd Pruitt: "Almost two years ago, on an episode of Mortification of Spin, I offered a verbal endorsement of the book Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood by my friend and cohost Aimee Byrd. . . . My conscience demands that I offer this retraction publicly, since my error was public."

[Kirstie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated this book primarily for three reasons:

1. It provides helpful exposure to anyone unfamiliar with the implications of the theology and praxis of CBMW (Counsel of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood), particularly its Trinitarian errors.

2. If you have experienced sexism in the church, this book will make you feel seen. If you have tried to speak against sexism in the church, this book will make you feel heard. If you have been made to feel that your performance of your manhood or womanhood is the most important thing about you, you’ll find peace in what Byrd rightly observes: that every Christian’s fundamental identity is, above all, in being both an imitator of Christ the man and a member of his bride, the church.

3. This book centers discipleship in the local congregation. The congregation cannot relinquish its responsibility to disciple its people (*all* its people); nor should the members construct a spiritual diet primarily supplied by parachurch ministries (which are disconnected from the shepherd and fellow sheep who can hold them accountable). Real church, Byrd affirms, depends on the promise of Jesus’ presence and activity in the congregation.

I took issue, however, with the following:

1. The yellow wallpaper. For me, Byrd exhausted this metaphor (and, as it happens, the pizza metaphor). It would have served better as a hook rather than an organizing principle. I found it distracting to have to figure out in each section what represented the wall and what was the paper and who was doing the peeling.

2. Inconsistent tone. Especially in a book that is intended to help people take women seriously in the church, I found it grating to encounter extended pizza metaphors and words like “switcheroo” at the same time as high-level academic terminology that the author doesn’t explain.

3. Her exegesis. Byrd rarely uses Scripture to interpret Scripture. Instead, she uses experts’ research to reveal otherwise hidden meanings. This method can be helpful, but when the bulk of her Scriptural backing depends on scholars and experts, the reader is left skeptical that ordinary readers could ever discern what the Bible says about women on their own.

One final thought. After deepening my familiarity with CBMW theology, I am baffled and grieved that so many Christians have such a small view of their own sex and the opposite one that they have only one paradigm with which to view sexuality and male-female relationships: authority and submission. It seems representative of an overarching exegetical poverty in the American evangelical church that stems in part from a desire to have one Christian opinion for every topic that together construct one Christian “worldview.” The upshot of espousing an airtight paradigm is that there is a) little to no room to test or modify x idea in the paradigm, b) little to no room for polysemous reality (e.g. God loves and hates sinners, the Lord’s Supper is true body and blood and also not cannibalism, husbands and wives submit to each other and also the husband is the head of his wife, etc.), c) few to no ways of interacting with ideas except in terms of offense and defense — exposing holes in other people’s arguments and protecting one’s own from the same, and d) an expectation that truth is whatever makes the most sense. I appreciated hearing more clearly what this exegetical poverty sounds like in the context of this conversation so that I can better engage it in my own church body, and better testify to the exegetical feast God offers.

[Patience · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aimee Byrd described Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood as frustrating because of what it gets right. I feel the same way about Byrd's book. She makes a lot of points that I agree with, but in many places I think her analysis is off and as a result, her solutions may cause more harm than good.
She is observing real problems that exist in a lot of churches and that deserve recognition and response from her critics. Many women have received infantilizing treatment from churches that have applied hard and fast lines without giving careful answers on what they believe about men and women or why.
At the same time, I found her assessment of 1 Corinthians 11-14 (women were told to be silent in churches and ask questions at home because their cultural context was such that they missed important points and didn't understand what was being taught) to be rather infantilizing in itself, and I find it troubling that a book critiquing the church for not always thinking carefully about where women fit in the life of the church *never* interacts with 1 Timothy 2:12, gives little treatment to Titus 2, and doesn't have a lot to say on what male headship *ought* to look like in the church or in the home. Her failure to do so is especially frustrating because it moves much of the interaction with her book among her critics to the points that she neglected, rather than interaction with her points on problematic orthorpaxy and attitudes.

[Persis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What should be the goal of Christian discipleship for the lay believer? What is the context and the content of that discipleship?

In this book, Aimee Byrd makes that case that the goal of discipleship is "complete, glorified resurrection to live eternally with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." This goal is for all believers and should be cultivated in the context of the local church by the ordinary means of grace. Unfortunately somewhere along the way, the goal of discipleship has morphed into culturally specific ideals for men and women. This has resulted in the introduction of aberrant teaching about the Trinity (e.g. the eternal subordination of the Son) and hindered the growth of lay believers and their contributing to the building up of the body of Christ.

To be very clear, this book does not promote female ordination. Neither does it seek to undermine a husband's servant leadership in the home. Rather the author is encouraging church leaders and members to examine if our current discipleship is driven by the culture wars and/or parachurch organizations.

I believe this examination is long overdue, and I am thankful that Aimee Byrd has written this book, knowing full well what the negative reactions would be. Upon completing "Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood," I came away with a greater appreciation for my pastor and his commitment to foster the spiritual growth of the entire congregation, men and women. I also came away with a greater desire to commit to my church as the primary means whereby I am discipled to Christ rather than pursuing one of many options that are available, some which are outside the confessional statement of my church.

I strongly recommend this book. If the goal of discipleship is "eternal communion with the Triune God," we shouldn't settle for anything less.

(I listened to an audio version to see if I missed any of the concerns raised by other readers about covert feminism or egalitarianism. I found none. Unless the equal value of men and women in the church and their ability to mutually encourage one another in the faith counts as a feminism. Then you'd have to label the Apostle Paul as a feminist.)

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my radar for a while, and its arrival on my doorstep coincided nearly perfectly with the most recent flare up of viritrol against the author. (I say "most recent" because barring strong church discipline within her denomination, it's likely to continue.) Byrd raises great points about the overreach of various iterations of complementarinism, and she offers helpful insight into the massive popularity of female parachurch ministries (authors, speakers, etc.). I'm saddened and unsurprised to see her attacked so abusively online. Christian sisters with strong minds and informed arguments inevitably take a beating, a dynamic which rather reinforces some of her points.

[Ryan Linkous · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this a week ago but wanted to take some time to process my thoughts and read other reviews. This doesn't capture all my thoughts, but it'll be helpful for future reference for me and hopefully others:

I believe that Aimee Byrd’s book and critique of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is helpful. She criticizes one (1) their casting of gender roles as too patriarchal and ultimately not biblical enough, (2) their willfulness to tolerate a subpar, unorthodox doctrine of God within their ranks while co-laboring for the cause of biblical masculinity and femininity, and (3) their poor and at time muted response to abusive and bullying voices toward women and victims of abuse.

In a world where many progressive and liberal Christian voices fully accept the LGBT agenda and the emergence of trans issues as a common topic of public debate force us to question, thinking about what it means to be a man or woman biblically is important. However, to conflate those issues with egalitarian voices on gender isn’t always helpful. It’s especially unhelpful whenever other issues within the evangelical ranks are insufficiently challenged by the leaders of churches and institutions.

For example, I think by now, many who are thinking in public about evangelicalism have realized that the historic response from evangelicals against racism has been underwhelming at least and a complete disaster at worst. Complicity abounds in ways which my generation (millennials) has to grapple with. Even if we didn’t create the problem, history has handed it to us. But what would be a worse situation for the modern evangelical Christian convinced about different gender roles from the Bible: an egalitarian who believes in inerrancy of Scripture and the exclusivity of Jesus Christ for salvation or a “doctrinally-sound” complementarian who is a Neo-Confederate?

Or maybe a complementarian who is wildly and unbiblically patriarchal. One example is Michael Foster who helps lead It’s Good to Be a Man, an organization devoted to “biblical” patriarchy. He said, “One reason only men are qualified to be elders is that men can get in a knockdown drag-out blood-spilling fist fight, reconcile, and enjoy a drink together as friends all in the same day. Women are much more brutal. Their wars tend to be total war by way of guerilla warfare.” Show me the chapter and verse on that one, bud. I can show you a few that would actually bar those men from the pastoral office (1 Tim 2:8 and 3:2). It’s just unbiblical drivel.

Regardless, Byrd’s book is helpful for someone like me (and Byrd!!) who believes (for now at least) that the Bible does speak a specific word to husbands and to wives and who is inclined to believe that the Bible limits the office of ordained pastor/elder to men. I’ll share some strengths of the book, some weaknesses, and I’ll give my thoughts about some of Byrd’s critics.

Strengths:

(1) Before discussing some of Byrd’s points on gender and the church, it should be noted that she demonstrates a profound grasp on theology, the Triune life of God, and the purpose of worship. It’s definitely directed in Orthodox Presbyterian direction (as it should be given her church affiliation). These bits of the book may seem tangential to her main arguments, but I think they actually reinforce what she is aiming at. She wants men and women to participate in the full worship of God. This is a God-ward book.
(2) Her “gynocentric interruptions” (as painful as the terms sounds!) are helpful to see women’s voices in the narratives of Scripture. As one reckons with the contributions of Huldah, Ruth, Deborah, Mary, Phoebe, and more, the interpreter of the Bible has to consider their roles in their society and how they challenge modern notions of gender. Women are called to do amazing things that do not fit the normal confines of what CBMW complementarity allows, and making exceptional arguments for them (i.e. there were no men courageous to lead Israel, this was an “emergency” missionary situation with no men around, etc.) are demeaning to women. It’s an inductive approach to gender and Scripture rather than deductive one.
(3) Moving to her critiques of CBMW, I think criticizing how to think about all of life as gendered activity is unhelpful. I.e. How can deliver mail as a man? How can I exercise as a woman? Also, taking a few texts which are limited to the relationship between husband and wife and extrapolating those relational dynamics to general relationships between men and women is just bizarre and nuts. That a man’s natural disposition is to lead and woman’s is to nurture that leadership is crazy. There are many men who do not have a call to lead! And they should be good followers as well. Conversely, many women are competent and gifted to lead, and should be allowed to lead without fearing dishonoring their God-given gender by doing so.
(4) Chapter 4 stands out as the key chapter of the book and it is where the main criticisms of CBMW lie. If you want to heart of her critique, go there first. Here is the question: must discipleship be gendered? Is the aim of our discipleship to be a biblical man or woman or to be Christlike regardless of our gender?
(5) Her call to train females well in theology and in ministry skills is important. Can women learn how to proclaim the Word in their seminaries?
(6) Her critique of male-only leadership in parachurch organizations is really interesting. Most complementarians would also agree that the parachurch is not a local church, but would impose the same gendered roles upon the leadership (and sometimes every the staff) of the organization.

Now for a few criticisms:
(1) One lacuna in her discussions of Scripture is 1 Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet” (ESV). I think this means that she has left her argument open to the critique that she hasn’t wrestled with all of the relevant Bible texts. Criticisms that focus on this point miss the broader point of the book: Byrd’s book isn’t a treatise on why women should teach – it’s about the entire way we live the faith. Teaching is a part of it, and I do wish she had discussed it, but this criticism isn’t enough to sink the whole ship.
(2) I wish Byrd would be a bit more direct in her criticisms specifically of Denny Burk, Owen Strahan, John Piper, and Wayne Grudem. She primarily mentions them in footnotes only. I don’t know if that was her decision or her editor’s, but they seem like the main people she takes issue with within the CBMW.
(3) I think one thing that critics of complementarians still lack at times is a constructive masculinity. What does it mean for a man to be a man? Is there such a thing as a manly man? They can be a good person, but what distinguishes men and women beyond anatomy and childbearing? Sure, critique modern patriarchy all day. But what should men be? How can I encourage my son to use his maleness for good? I know this is beyond the pale of this book’s argument, but I do wonder this.

Now for some comments on her critics:
Having read Andy Naselli’s review of RFBMW, I want to say a few things:

Nasilli criticizes for Byrd using narratives as evidence for her teaching on women’s leading or breaking norms versus the direct teaching found in the epistles (namely 1 Timothy 2:10-12). My retort: Is this not privileging one piece of the canon over and against another? Do the narratives have authority only as subject to discourse analysis of Paul’s letters? Saying that Paul’s command is direct and clear and thus the norm which norm the norms in the Bible does allow one to make a neat distinction, but does it do justice to all of the evidence?

Or do the witness of the biblical narratives give us ethical considers we must weigh along with 1 Timothy 2:10-12. Also, considering 1 Corinthians 11:4 assumes that women are praying and prophesying in the gathered, public worship. Paul’s main concern is that they do so correctly, in a way which honors their head. Also, Priscilla being a mentor of Apollos shows that women can disciple men. Phoebe delivering (and likely reading and explaining) Paul’s letter to the Romans does make a case for women teaching in the public assembly. It just means our interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:10-12 must be more nuanced. The exposition and explanation of that interpretation will require more work.

Naselli critiques Byrd of drawing upon evangelical egalitarians for some of her arguments. But this assumes that everything they have to say is incorrect or misleading. It’s an ad hominin that doesn’t stand in good faith. It also doesn’t acknowledge the authoritative canon’s many within the CBMW hold at the top and rarely disagree with. You could say, “You only depend upon the exegesis of complementarian theologians.” To illustrate this point, one former teacher of mine memorably said, “Peter John Piper picked a pack of J.I. Packer’s hermeneutics” and evangelicals seems beholding to it. I don’t say that to criticize all they said (also not trying to drag Packer into this), but without Grudem, Piper, Tom Schreiner, D.A. Carson, and Andreas Köstenberger, where the movement be? Schreiner, Carson, and Köstenberger are elite exegetes. But are their names and interpretations so powerful they cannot be incorrect or challenged?

But to Naselli’s credit, he wrote a review, signed his name to it, and at least gave Byrd that dignity and respect. There are many trolls and cowards on the internet who won’t, but hide beyond closed groups and anonymous accounts. Some of these crew are slandering Byrd and trying to tank her book on Amazon. Doesn’t seem very “manly” to me. Unfortunately, many of these men (because they are likely all men) are pastors. They have won’t even engage in good faith. Really pathetic.

-------
In conclusion: buy the book and read it. If you’re going to have a strong opinion about it, don’t depend upon my review or others, but take up and read. And love Jesus Christ and all those make in his image.

I think I’m more inclined to believe women should be teaching more in the church, and not exclusively to male audiences. I have believed this for awhile for moments outside of corporate worship (ex. a class). But it’s making me more open to the idea that we need to hear more teaching from women.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are we incorporating women in the life of the church as necessary allies, or have we allowed the yellow wallpaper of “biblical manhood and womanhood” to distract us from the complementarity of the sexes we see in Scripture? Is there room in our churches for Mary, Lydia, and Priscilla? Are women encouraged to sit at Jesus’s feet and learn, and are we willing to learn from women when they contribute to our discussions?

Byrd’s book is a welcome addition to the current conversations on the importance of women in the life of the church. We need to be aware of the yellow wallpaper in our churches, and we need to peel away these extra-biblical beliefs that obscure the beauty of the Scriptures. The world around us needs to hear the truth of who we are as men and women made in His image, and it needs men and women as witnesses to the truth of the gospel. I’m thankful for Byrd’s work and highly recommend this book. It will bless and strengthen men, women, and churches, if we’re willing to listen.

[T.A. Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I think that this book makes some important critiques of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, it fell far short of its potential. Unfortunately, -in my opinion- this book was all over the place. It claimed to be addressed to church leaders, but read like it was for Women's Studies majors. There was an overwhelming sense that Byrd was trying to engage with, and respond to, feminist literature with a level of respectability. Unfortunately, this had a few bad effects. For example, at the beginning of the book Byrd critiques evangelicals for having women's study bibles and men's study bibles, because we should all have one scripture. But she then developed an entire hermeneutic for viewing Scripture as "androcentric" with "gynocentric interruptions." See the irony? She focused on finding woman's "voice" in Scripture, and spoke of developing woman's "agency" in the church - meanwhile I was left with the question "How is this going to help local pastors know how to theologically equip and properly treat women?" It seemed as if Byrd's ultimate conclusion to that question was that women should be leading parts of the worship services in their churches, and teaching co-ed Sunday school classes (neither of which I think is biblically appropriate). If I can be terse: I wish that Byrd would have spent more time carefully evaluating the specific bad behaviors in our churches that the statements on "biblical manhood and womanhood" lead to, rather than trying to impress with the word "gynocentric."

[C.T. Eldridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who (like myself) have been discipled as a Christian and trained as a pastor in a context that has been strongly influenced by Piper and Grudem’s book “Rediscovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” and/or CBMW then this book will give you a lot to think about and be a helpful rejoinder to some of the arguments made and cultural distinctives promoted by CBMW. The author holds to biblical inerrancy and is not a traditional egalitarian. In fact, she’s a part of a denomination (PCA) that’s endorsed a lot of CBMW’s teaching, but she also has some important criticisms for the type of complementarianism promoted by Piper/Grudem and CBMW.

Probably the most important criticism she makes is the way that questionable trinitarian theology (namely, eternal subordination of the Son, ESS) has been used to promote the value and ontological nature of authority/submission relationships between men and women. In her mind, it’s an open and shut case that ESS is heterodox, at best. She doesn’t make this argument by looking at relevant texts, but by briefly citing other biblical scholars and theologians. So I think this part of the book somewhat falls flat if you’re not totally convinced that ESS is wrong.

But she seems to think that ESS teaching is what’s most responsible for promoting overly-generalized gender stereotypes. In other words, if authority/submission is at the very heart of God, then authority/submission is at the very heart of godliness. She argues, however, (if I understand her right) that the goal of the Christian is not authority/submission but communion with God, which both men and women are able to do equally.

I think she probably has a point that there may be a little too much emphasis on authority/submission in CBMW-influenced churches; however, in my experience I haven’t heard ESS used like she’s describing. Most of the time (if not every time) I’ve heard the subordination of the Son used while teaching on submission, it’s to simply make the point that “Submission is not a bad thing. Even Jesus submitted the Father.” This is an important point to make because the idea of submission is so off-putting in our culture, even church culture.

So in my experience (and I’ve got a lot of experience steeped in CBMW culture) the point is not so often tied to the ETERNAL subordination of the Son but his mission to come and save through his incarnation, which I think helps avoid some of the problems she’s concerned about.

Another important point for her is to elaborate on the important role many women have played throughout redemptive history in being (what she calls) tridents of God’s Word, meaning those who communicated and passed down the truth of God’s Word. This is a common strategy for many egalitarian books, pointing out figures like Deborah, Ruth, Phoebe, etc. And I think Byrd does a good job and makes many helpful points here.

As far as texts that may limit a woman’s involvement, she only deals with 1 Corinthians 14:33-35. And I think she’s does a good job here giving some explanation as to how this text fits within her overall emphasis that women need to be more active and more encouraged to be bearers of God’s Word.

However, an obvious shortcoming of the book to me is that she doesn’t deal with why men should only be the authorized office holders in the church. Why did Jesus choose only men to be the twelve apostles? Why is male-only ordination a good and biblical thing? Granted the book seems primarily aimed at complementarians who have over-emphasized biblical manhood and womanhood, but it still seems obviously necessary to make some point at laying out how male-only pastorate fits within her overall concern that women be tridents of the Word. In other words, if I’m an egalitarian reading this book, I would be left wondering, How the heck can you be a part of a male-only-pastors church like the PCA?

Here’s another way to state this concern of mine for the book: If CBMW and Piper/Grudem over-emphasize the distinction between men and women, then this book over-emphasizes the similarity between men and women. That’s why I said at the start of this review that this book is good if you’ve been strongly influenced by CBMW, because it’ll bring balance. But my concern is that it tips the scale the other way and doesn’t bring any significant definition to what is distinctive about men and women. To be sure she does affirm that there is a difference and that there is a binary nature to the sexes. But after having read the entire book, I don’t know that I could say what she thinks is different between the two or why God would make two, other than that he wants to see unity in diversity. But what is the diversity? For reading nearly 250 pages on gender and not answering that question left me really wanting.

Throughout the book she also points to the many and painful situations that have resulted from CBMW teaching. And I don’t want to say those accusations are false. But I do want to add mine and my wife’s experience. We lived in Louisville, Kentucky for seven years where I attended (MDiv) and then worked for Southern Seminary. We also were members of Kenwood Baptist where both Denny Burk and Owen Strachan were elders (president and former president of CBMW). So like I said we were steeped in CBMW teaching and culture. And, for sure, this seminary and this church were far from perfect; however, we experienced none of the negative traits that Byrd relates about CBMW culture. And she lists a lot of them. In our experience, women were celebrated and respected. And they demonstrated that they were “necessary allies” (Byrd’s preferred description for women) in our church’s ministry.

Again, would this book be a helpful correction for everyone at Southern and CBMW? Absolutely. No question. I just wonder if her correction is itself an over-correction.

[Emily Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, so to preface, I really think you should read Matthew Manchester's review linked here, because I agree with much of it.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

What I can add to his review that was not already said- I wish that this book covered more anthropology. What I believe I am craving a theology book is a cosmic understanding of our sex and how it relates to Imago Dei, not a list of social norms and rules. Aimee points toward these concepts in her book, but I want them fleshed out and connected to a covenantal understanding of theology. Someone smarter than me, please write this book.

[Trevor Kane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am grateful to net galley.com and Zondervan Reflective for an advance review copy of this book which has in no way influenced the content of the review.

I am a Pastor of a church which practices male only ordination in south west Scotland, in some senses I may have been the target audience of this book, being as I am a Conservative Evangelical Christian. I had read lots about this book before I got a copy, Christian twitter was on fire with opinion pieces and many people writing the book off.

I have to say what I found was pleasantly surprising, Byrd does a great job in this book at pointing out the speck in other people's eye (though on some occasions it seems like a massive plank to me). For instance if your manhood and your definition of manhood is so fragile that you cant ask for directions from a woman then the chances are that there is something wrong with your manhood rather than the woman's femininity. I also like Byrd's focus on how all women are not called to submit to all men, that is not a biblical concept I can find anywhere.. Certainly Paul commands woman to be subject to their own husbands but not to all men. I also learned that much theological controversy in recent years, especially around the Eternal Subordination of the Son emanated from the council for biblical manhood and womanhood which helped to crystallise for me some of the issues surrounding that issue.

However there are some problems that I found with the book, I found it frustrating when Byrd was talking about the book of Ruth how she constantly said that the main thing about the book of Ruth wasn't that it was written from a female perspective but it was display of the faithfulness of God but then the chapter went on to talk about how the book of Ruth was written from a female perspective for an entire chapter, thus suggesting that this was the main thing.

I also had some exegetical problems with the book, I dont think for instance that her defence of Pheobe bringing the most important letter ever written was that convincing. I dont think that this somehow endowed her with an apostolic authority. I think even that the way that chapter was written can be confusing, our doctrine of Scripture tells us that all scripture is God breathed, not just Romans but Song Of Songs as well, not just Romans but Chronicles as well. To be fair to Byrd I know that she would whole heartedly agree with the above statement but the writing of that chapter left me with the impression that Romans was the most important thing ever written and was somehow more inspired, more inerrant than the rest of Scripture.

I also didn't find the list of women whose houses churches met in during the years of the early church particularly convincing, Byrd argues that because the church met in their house then somehow these women must be considered as the leaders of that church. Well it could be, but it could also be that these were women of substance who just happened to have a big enough place for people to meet.

The final exegetical problem I had concerned Deborah and Barak, where Byrd claims that Barak's refusal to go without Deborah wasn't a crime of cowardice but a desire to make sure that the woman of God went with him. To me the rebuke that Deborah offers to Barak seems to show that wasn't the case. Deborah says this wont lead to your glory, (as it would had if you had obeyed willingly) for now Sisera will die by the hands of a woman. (Brackets are my own addition and not in scripture).

This is a book that needed to be written, for too long the church has confined the role of women to making tea and serving in the creche, for too long the Godly women who have kept many churches going throughout the centuries has been overlooked as soon as a man comes along. It is a book that the modern evangelical church needs to read, but in my opinion it is a book that doesn't really know what it wants to be. it is a book that falls between two stools, is it a radical feminist call for woman's ordination (which it comes close to on occasion) or is it a call for a church to reform a practice that alienates half of the congregation?

I found some of the answers unsettling, I found myself guilty of some of the things that Byrd lists, I cant go all the way with everything that Byrd writes but on the whole I have had my conceptions challenged I have thought about several different things as a result of reading this book and you will too.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I officially love Aimee Byrd. I’ve liked her from afar for a long time, but her work in Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood made me sit up and take notice.

Here, Byrd provides stimulating exegesis that make me want to re-read Scripture passages yet again. Her reading of Ruth, building on the solid work of other faithful scholars, is alone worth the price of the book. She cites some of my favorite scholars, including Sister Prudence Allen, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and Lynn Cohick. She even cites Sarah Grimké! While Byrd believes in exclusively male ordination, she peels the yellow wallpaper of harmful, unorthodox Christian teachings in complementarian circles (Byrd does not call herself a complementarian, 121). “The word complementarian has been hijacked by an outspoken and overpublished group of evangelicals who flatten its meaning and rob it of its true beauty and complementarity.” (124) Stanley Grenz would add that the term was also stolen from a group forced to rename itself as egalitarian (of which I am a member).

In the egalitarian circles where I move, I often hear complementarians denigrated, ridiculed, and otherwise put down. I have lots of theological and biblical and historical problems with complementarianism, particularly the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, to which Byrd responds specifically and at length in this book. Yet, I also find much value in the faithful Christian life and thought of many complementarians. (I am a Catholic- and Orthodox-appreciating Protestant, for one!) Byrd is one more male-only-ordination voice I appreciate. Her work is so faithful to the Scriptural text, so clearly submitted to the authority of Christ, so adherent to the creeds, that as a Christian I can only cheer her on. She considers male-only ordination as a matter of secondary importance, just as I consider male-and-female ordination, and thus we are left agreeing on far more than we disagree.

Byrd writes with that deep love for the body of Christ found in writers like Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Esau McCaulley, and Beth Felker Jones. As Byrd’s sister in the faith, I cherish her challenge to consider how I can contribute to the life of the family of God. At my particular moment of joining a new church during a pandemic, there’s no clear answer yet, but I am so encouraged and energized by Byrd that I relish “living the question,” as Rilke would have it. While I am seminary-trained, with two Christianese degrees behind me, I also deeply value her laywoman's work. She cites plenty of academic sources, sure. She talks about the original languages of the Bible a bit, of course. Yet, Recovering reads conversationally, not academically. Though I think it will be appreciated best by those familiar with CBMW and women-in-the-church conversations, Recovering is written for laypeople, not for the highly trained scholar or seminary-educated pastor. Small groups who are having these types of conversations will appreciate this book in particular. Byrd’s discussion questions at the end of each chapter are kind of a lot, but they’re good. (She squeezes 11 questions under point 1 at the end of chapter 7 on page 210. They are followed by 4 subsequent points containing 12 more questions. My small group can get through 2 pre-written questions about the weekly sermon in an average meeting--and sermons run short in our Anglican church.)

When this book was first published, the horrifying backlash Byrd experienced incensed me. (You can read all about it on her blog, especially posts from spring/summer 2020.) Folks were lambasting her left and right, yet not actually engaging with her work or inviting her to discuss/respond on their platforms. I think part of the issue is the title, a deconstruction of CBMW and their hefty book. This only takes up one chapter of Recovering, though it's referenced at other places, too. Byrd prefers memorable, provocative titles for her books: Housewife Theologian. No Little Women. Why Can’t We Be Friends? I see why she went with a title deliberately untying the knots of a famous complementarian work. Byrd doesn’t deserve the unfair attacks (not criticism) she’s received. Yet, I do wish the title reflected the content of the book, like the subtitle does: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose. The Church's Yellow Wallpaper, Byrd's subtitle for her introduction, would be appropriate. The cover, on the other hand, is one of my favorites of recent nonfiction.

Overall, I enthusiastically recommend Recovering to anyone interested in the topic. Byrd has a sharp mind and a winning voice. She contributes valuable insights to the people of God, and I felt both affirmed and personally challenged while reading this book.

Addendum

I encountered a stumbling block in the introduction, helpfully titled, “The Introduction That You May Not Skip!” (I never skip an intro, but thanks for your low opinion of me as a reader. Clearly, this is intended for all the loudmouths who took it upon themselves to cancel Byrd without even reading her book, much less the introduction.) Here, Byrd sets up her central image, which she borrows from a famous short story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Byrd reads Gilman’s life with very shallow historical lenses: “Since women weren’t even given the right to vote until 1920, poor Charlotte Perkins Gilman didn’t have much of a voice when it came to her own diagnosis and treatment.” (14-15) Because, evidently, women only gained their voices once men granted them the legal right to vote? Miss me with that ahistorical claptrap.

Decades before Gilman wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” in 1890…
- an enslaved Black woman sued for her freedom and won by approaching the courts with Thomas Jefferson’s words, “all men are created equal;” this became a landmark case resulting in the abolition of slavery in Massachussetts (Elizabeth Freeman, 1781)
- a Black woman won a lawsuit against a white man (Sojourner Truth, 1827)
- a white woman testified before a US state legislature for the first time (Angelina Grimke, 1838)
- the Seneca Falls Convention occurred (1848)
- a white woman received an MD in the US for the first time (Elizabeth Blackwell, 1849)
- the US entered the Geneva Conventions due to the instrumental efforts of a white woman (Clara Barton, 1862)
- Wyoming legalized women’s suffrage (1869)
- closer to 1890, women achieved international fame through investigative journalism (Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Nellie Bly)
- and so much more!

Yes, women in the 19th-century US suffered less legal and social freedoms than women enjoy today. Stating that Gilman “didn’t have much of a voice” until men granted her the right to vote ignores the women, including Gilman herself, who refused to be silenced. Gilman freely wrote and published a short story and a personal essay about her experience. She had a voice and she used it! The error Byrd makes here comes from her lack of historical research into Gilman, the suffragette movement, and women’s history in general. Besides “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper,” Byrd cites no historical sources, only contemporary journalism, on Gilman and her work.* This demonstrates Byrd’s poor understanding of Gilman herself, and the time period in which Gilman lived (which Byrd calls “Victorian,” despite the fact that Gilman was never a citizen in Queen Victoria’s dominion).

Fortunately, nothing else in the book read this way to me. Yet, as a women’s historian, I was deeply disappointed that Byrd bowed Gilman down to the limitations of her day rather than peeling back the wallpaper to reveal how revolutionary Gilman was. Part of this is due to Byrd reading the story too much into Gilman’s life. When Gilman didn't like the marriage she was in at the time of writing "The Yellow Wallpaper," she left it. Gilman's doctor recommended the "rest" treatment, including a specific prohibition of writing, for the rest of Gilman's life and Gilman clearly did not follow that. Talk about "poor Charlotte Perkins Gilman" not having "much of a voice when it came to her own diagnosis and treatment." Um....is it too obvious to say that she rejected the diagnosis and treatment, proof of which we have in "The Yellow Wallpaper?" Clearly not, since this fact missed Byrd completely. The protagonist of the short story was possessed by the woman from the wallpaper, but Gilman retained her own faculties and wrote fiction as herself. Byrd sets up her introduction for intense scrutiny: “You May Not Skip!” I wish there had been just a leedle more attention paid by Byrd and her editors regarding how Gilman was handled in this section. Given how Byrd reads women from the Bible and church history, I know she’s capable of much more than the reading of Gilman in the introduction to Recovering.

I will give Byrd this. She writes, "in reading it ["The Yellow Wallpaper"] more than one hundred years after its publication, I too see the lingering yellow wallpaper. Much of it is ripped off, of course--thanks to the woman who was behind it." (17) But this one statement does little to recover Byrd's reading from a reductive view of women in the 19th century. I trust that Byrd doesn't actually view 19th-century women this way, but from reading the introduction, one can reasonably conclude that she does.

*Byrd references articles from The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, and The Guardian. I have no issues with these authors or sources as voices of contemporary literary criticism and current reception history. Yet, Byrd should have referenced secondary historical sources in addition to contemporary, non-academic sources, which she does frequently elsewhere in this book. Not doing so intimates that Byrd gives Gilman’s voice less credence than male voices, academic resources on whom she quotes frequently.

[R.L.S.D · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounding up. This book represents a faithful starting point for this conversation (i.e. the response to CBMW theology) but the church will benefit from more thorough contributions in the future.

Three things I loved:

1. Byrd is largely responsible for instigating the Trinity debates to combat the anti-Nicene Creed belief in the eternal subordination of the son. (This is a huge deal - for a conservative Lutheran explanation of ESS, see Jordan Cooper's video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vIiO3RK... )


2. Byrd argues that since our primary identities as Christians are in Christ and His Church, both men and woman must in a way "sacrifice" the primacy of their gender in their spiritual life - women must become like Christ, a man, and men must be a part of Christ's bride, feminine imagery.

3. Byrd is at her best in ch. 6, asserting the primacy of discipleship in the local church where Word and Sacrament are administered, over discipleship from parachurch ministries.

Two things I didn't love:

1. The book is a little historically thin and participates in the lamentable trend of thinking that the past basically consists of something called "Bible times" and the Victorian era, which only exists in England and the United States. (In fairness, most people I know, including pastors, think about the past this way with the addition for Americans of one of our major wars [but not the Apache War because nobody seems to know that happened - but I digress - the point is, most people have little knowledge of history.])

2. Due in part to the overall historical thinness, Byrd includes a number of quotes and references that function inadvertently as portmanteaus for a host of unintended associations that color the clarity of the book's point. For instance, Charlotte Perkins Gillman's story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," which Byrd uses as an analogy throughout her project, is an interesting (if disturbing) story, but brings with it echoes of Gillman's racism and Darwinian thought from the rest of her writing. Is that the best we can do when looking for powerful artistic images to communicate truth?

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whew! I rarely find myself writing down a list of things I would like to include in my comments on a book after finishing it. But this one had me fill up a full page in my notebook.

I first became interested in this book when she was on the Mortification of Spin podcast, and until I did a little digging yesterday, wondered about her sudden disappearance from that show. It makes sense now. I had had high expectations for this book for a couple reasons: 1. the recommendation of Carl Trueman (whom I love because he's a church historian with the wisdom to eschew celebrity among other things), 2. a particularly long list of frustrations with Wayne Grudem (who is closely associated with the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood movement/organization), and 3. a caution about specialized para-church ministries (most commonly in my experience the young-earth creation ministries, who press their locus of teaching too close to the center of the Faith). Regarding the last, especially, Byrd had spoken on the Mortification podcast and resonated with me. Regarding the first, Trueman received criticism for supporting and defending Byrd, and though I still trust his discernment more than many of the critics from that episode, they were pretty demonstrably right (not necessarily in their behavior, but in their assessment of where Byrd actually was). Regarding the second, only one of my examples actually relates, and that is Grudem's absurd statement from 1995: "For centuries, no one thought mutual submission was there in Ephesians 5:21, for they recognized that the verse teaches that we should all be subject to those whom God has put in authority over us—such as husbands, parents, or employers. In this way, Ephesians 5:21 was rightly understood to mean, 'being subject to one another (that is, some to others), in the fear of Christ.'" His presumption that egalitarians "simply have not done their homework" became laughable to me when I looked for the idea of mutual submission in older commentaries. The concept is abundant, and expressed exactly in the terms Grudem denied. For instance, Calvin (with whose credentials I doubt Grudem would be keen to contest): "I do not except even kings and governors, whose very authority is held for the service of the community. It is highly proper that all should be exhorted to be subject to each other in their turn." In fairness, it seems as though Grudem modified his argument by the publication of his book in the early 2000s. All this to say, I finally got around to reading a book that's been in my sights a long time.

I read it concurrently with Rosaria Butterfield's new book (Five Lies). The contrast is remarkable.

In the end, though there are things I really liked in Byrd's book (particularly on the centrality of the local church over para-church ministries or celebrity culture in Christianity), on the whole I found it easily discreditable. I wouldn't even encourage it for purposes of meaningful engagement with complementarian and egalitarian discourse. Here are a few scattered thoughts that stood out as worth recording:
1. Her use of the phrase "gynocentric interruption" is irritating. She wants it to be a fun, playful thing for the reader, but it just seems out of place. She's throwing a borrowed snippet of modern hermeneutical scholarship to folks who likely don't have a context for using it discerningly, and it seems to do more to distort the Scriptural texts she applies it to, setting them at odds with what surrounds them. I think she compromises the integrity of Scripture in doing so by giving the readers a lens as thick as the words she uses to describe it.
2. Her reliance for part of her book on Richard Baucham seems too much. So she found a voice she agrees with, but it so predominates that it made me feel her perspective was made more narrow rather than more broad by the dependance.
3. She takes a more aggressive stand on the Trinity Debate that I consider justifiable. I tend to agree with her position, perhaps, but I think Erickson's tone is more called for.
4. Her discussion of "role" seems absurd to me, perhaps not so much in what she says, but in the meaning she forces on her opponents. Regardless, I'm familiar with the technique (perhaps just a "misstep" on her part) of quibbling over the meaning of a word with the effect (if not intent) of distracting from the issue at hand. I know of Fundamentalists who argue that "legalist" can only refer to those who say "salvation is by works" and that therefore no fundamentalists are legalists, thereby deflecting an accusation made by people who clearly mean something else by the word. Do these fundamentalists propose a new vocabulary on which the actual point of contention can continue to be discussed? No. It was just a deflection.
5. She walks headlong into some strange classical and Catholic spirituality and bemoans that neither Evangelical egalitarians or complementarians have written on these topics at such a high and profound level. Perhaps its because such things are pure sophistry, which even she can't ground in the Scriptures themselves.
6. She does not seem to fairly represent the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood movement. She doesn't really seem to want to. Her notion of their idea of discipleship is absurd. What she proposes as the appropriate perspective in response is exactly what I was trained in by my almost exclusively complementarian upbringing and ministry training.
7. She regards personal hurt (hers or others') as an nearly infallible guide to the truth or error of certain teachings. If someone professes to be "hurt" by something, that thing is to blame. This is an easy but wrong-headed tactic, popular in our day.
8. She offers a ridiculous proof that Evangelical men too often preach only to men by citing research on the frequency of male vs. female proper names being used in sermons. She doesn't cross the obvious bridge that if this argument is sound in judging sermons, then it is sound in judging Scripture. I did the work. While my method may not be flawless (for instance many personal names become the names of tribes or peoples), the first female proper name in order of frequency (in the ESV) showed up in 48th spot. It was Esther. She has a book named after her. Her name appears in the text 55 times, two more than Haman, and 6 fewer than Mordecai. Mary is next, despite the name being shared by several women, at 54 occurrences (the 53rd name in my list). There are 47 male personal names (some used mostly tribally, but the tribal name still derived from a male individual) used more frequently than Esther, totally over 11,000 occurrences. Would she draw the same conclusion from the Bible as she does from evangelical sermons? Not likely. It's just not a good argument.
9. She is too quickly dismissive of interpretations that don't fit her perspective.
10. She completely ignores some texts pertinent to the issues she discusses.
11. Her exegetical work is usually the straightest line she can draw to the conclusion most conducive to her perspective. Sometimes helpful or interesting. Not always great.
12. Her discussion of "bride" is strange, implying that men have twice as much work as women to do to understand themselves as the Bride of Christ. However, she doesn't seem to notice how much she has individualized what is taught in Scripture as a corporate truth, nor does she demonstrate that this has actually been at all an obstacle to men's apprehension or understanding of this teaching. I think she's making bricks without straw, and the argument falls apart pretty quickly.
13. I appreciate her pointing out the problem that can arise from so many Bible study tools crafted specifically for and marketed exclusively to women. God's word is given equally to all, and the means of grace are the same for all. But the other voice I have heard expound on this with great clarity is ... Doug Wilson. Probably not someone she would consider an ally. I have to laugh at this.
14. Regarding discipleship, her egalitarian perspective simply ignores that the Bible itself does in fact support the idea that living the Christian life takes on different forms for different groupings of people, and also calls for different types of interaction with various groups of people, including men and women (Ephesians 5-6; Titus).
15. Having taught through Genesis 3 multiple times, most recently on the Sunday before reading this part of the book, I found her attempt to recast Eve's addition of the prohibition not to touch the fruit completely uncompelling. She pointed out some interesting texts elsewhere in Scripture, but favored interpreting the texts via distant rather than near contexts. I too once discounted claims that she added to God's word, or at least that any significance should be attributed to the addition. But reengaging the text time and time again on its own terms, I am convinced this was not any appropriate liturgical expansion of the divine command. Rather, it stresses the prohibition, just as she also lessened the provision (freely eating of every tree). The cumulative weight of all Eve's seemingly minor changes persuade me against Byrd's interpretation. Eve is not the exemplary handler of God's Word Byrd wants to make her.

A few other observations:
1. One of my favorite quotes: "He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial . . . The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own laws, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of the brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together . . . When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself." ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.
2. GKC (Gabriel Syme in The Man Who Was Thursday): "Now, sometimes a man like your brother really finds a thing he does mean. It may be only a half-truth, quarter-truth, tenth-truth; but then he says more than he means—from sheer force of meaning it." Maybe she wrote more or more forcefully than she intended, by the sheer force of having something worthwhile to say.

She asks a good question at the end of the book: are women the only ones in your church learning about submission? I think for myself, the answer is "no." But it is a question worth asking.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me feel like I'm actually NOT crazy when I look around and notice problems in the church, particularly with how the church tends to view and treat women. I did not agree with all of her conclusions, as the author is Reformed and I am not. But overall I would say this book is a major step forward for conservative, complementarian circles. More like a good ten steps forward!

[Rui Cadima · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me begin by saying that Byrd does ask some important questions and puts her finger on issues that I agree with. The fact that some churches who call themselves complementarian go too far in what they forbid, the abuse and the lack of willingness to investigate it, the lack of discipleship happening in the local church and leaving it to parachurch organisations. It's good to take stock and ask how we're doing things.

But I'm afraid that's about it in terms of positives.

The book is a mess in terms of exegesis. From missing crucial passages like 1 Timothy 2:12 to the flat out wrong exegesis of Bible passages. From blatant speculation leading to theological assertions and wrong theological positions (Phoebe having Paul's authorisation to teach Romans because she carried the letter, Huldah authenticating Scripture, Junia=Joanna...).
And Byrd mostly relies on other people's Scriptural work and assumes they're right without really engaging with contrary arguments. Interesting that the majority of people she quotes are feminists or egalitarians, yet she wouldn't position herself on either of those camps. In my opinion, she does argue as if she's in the egalitarian camp.

To me, the book is nudging people into giving women positions of leadership and authority in the Church. That may not be where Byrd wants to arrive at (although to me it looks like it is) but her argument seems to lead that way. Her critic of Piper and Grudem's book seems superficial too but maybe it would seem less so if I had read their book.

She also makes lots of generalisations about complementarian churches. Almost as if she sees things done wrong in certain churches and kind of assumes it's going on everywhere else. This might lead people to see problems that aren't there and that's not helpful.
Now, I do think the abuses and wrong procedures she mentions need to be addressed. But let's be careful to not set up straw men everywhere. Not every complementarian church gets things wrong just because some do.

Finally, it's worth mentioning one of her critics regarding complementarianism. It seemed to me that, for Byrd, if the doctrine of the Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS) is proven false, then the complementarian argument falls.
That is simply not true. I know many complementarian Christians who reject ESS.

Well, there we go. Generally speaking, there are some questions worth considering here but, overall, I cannot recommend this book.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed by this book. I do believe that some of the emphases of “biblical” manhood and womanhood as they are often taught can end up discouraging and distracting faithful men and women from their central pursuit of following Christ. So I would have loved to see a book provide some needed refocusing on the central shared call of both brothers and sisters in Christ. But this is not that book.

This book often feels like a “research dump”—so many long quotes and abstruse borrowed expressions (“gynocentric interruptions”? “the heart of existence “?). These sources clutter the book and make it hard to find Byrd’s own argument. More concerning, there’s a definite lack of discernment in the way complementarian, Catholic, Protestant, and non-Christian sources are presented.

Although this book does have some insights into the importance of women in some of the Bible’s underlying contours, it doesn’t deal with many of the most direct texts on men and women in the church and home.

Ironically, I feel this book fails in the same way as some bad versions of complementarianism do—by overapplying subtle details of biblical passages and missing the good news of the one gospel for all sinners, both men and women.

[Kellie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was hopeful about this book based on its central metaphor—that we must peel back the “yellow wallpaper” (a reference to the famous feminist novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman) surrounding biblical manhood and womanhood that supports harmful ideas about what it means to be a man and a woman. However, I quickly realized that the use of the metaphor did not live up to its namesake. I disagree with most of the claims that Byrd makes, but I will commend her for providing ample evidence of how women in the Bible were equally called to lead and how they displayed courage and strength. But overall my disappointment can be summed up this way: don’t use a feminist metaphor and then dismiss feminism. It just feels fake.

[Kyle Rapinchuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

Not exactly what I expected, but I was therefore unexpectedly pleased by excellent discussions of Phoebe, Junia, women’s voice in Scripture (gynocentric perspective), and more. Byrd sets forth fantastic questions for churches and individuals to ask. I also like her yellow wallpaper analogy—like the character in the story, women often feel trapped in church settings. It’s time to do a better job giving women meaningful work in the church.

[PJ Wenzel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book interesting and helpfully thought-provoking, but also disappointing and lacking in core areas.

The writing itself was well expressed, though sometimes needlessly complex, the vocabulary did help me re-imagine biblical concepts and not get too bogged down in my own assumptions. Good writers can really help readers in that way, and I think Byrd is a good writer. I felt she was working very hard to express some ideas that have heretofore not been expressed very well. Sometimes a wider vocabulary is helpful when trying to help people think outside the box. Though I do think her denigration of the term “role” as some 19th or 18th century stage term was needless. I mean, so what if that’s where we originally got the term, its a term people now understand and can appropriately use to express in English the idea of specific characteristics and functions of a person that are unique to them. Just because its not in the scriptures doesn’t mean it isn’t helpful to the English speaking world (cf. “trinity”). I thought that was a rather silly argument.

In fact there’s a lot of silly in this book - in a good way though. Some of the light heartedness helped keep it winsome. Which was good because otherwise I’d have thought it was a very shallowly constructed screed against conservative evangelical men - and I can see that, without a charitable eye, it would not go down easy to many men AND women within the reformed evangelical community.

What else...
I really liked where Byrd was aiming to go - working to flesh out this idea of co-laborers in Christ, expressed in ways that better embodied what Jesus and the NT authors taught us about loving God and each other, and making disciples of the whole world. The terminology of “ally” as opposed to “helper” was interesting, and I think probably helpfully (dare I use the word!) imparts in modern English what the term was going for originally - at least I think she made the case for this very well. Secondly, I think that looking at what it means to be male and female and “in Christ” outside of typical headship/submission framework rubric was interesting and helpful. Though she completely leaves out a discussion on what headship OUGHT to look like in marriage. Still, the point was interesting, and it led me to ask how we can better express ourselves so we can be more biblical in our living out of the gospel. How can we see each other not as less than male and female, but more to the point, as children of God. Finally, I really identified with her drive toward making much of women as not simply created to bolster a man’s ego or a man’s mission. They are inherently valuable image bearers with unique contributions to make, and much to offer the church! Their value isn’t only in who they marry - as if they aren’t complete or useful unless they are married. This is the most important and salient point, I think - and the practical outworking of this reality is what I hear her calling the church to rightly live into.

What I found wanting was the mechanism she used to support these important ideas. Her exegesis was…lacking. It seemed (and I could be wrong on this) that the essence of her arguments or issues with guys like Grudem and Piper, lie with a right understanding of the trinity - specifically the inter-trinitarian relationship between the father and the son. But I did not hear a compelling scriptural, or even philosophical case for her argument for her case - and I wanted to hear it! Second, there was no addressing the 1 Timothy 2 scripture which indicates that women are not to teach but remain silent in church. I thought her explanation (it wasn’t strictly an exposition) of the context around 1 Cor. 14 was excellent and helpful. But how can you address this topic, or write a book like this, and not address 1 Timothy 2? This is not just lacking, it's mystifying. Thirdly, I found her explanations around the scriptures she quoted as very creative and imaginative - and there IS room for creative thinking and existential imagination around texts, as we try and get into the proverbial “shoes” of each person (like Ruth, Phoebe and more). But the exposition of the text should come prior to lay groundwork, and this was always very thin. And I think the imaginative guesswork around some of these instances in scripture was a bit more than the text could support (the example of the “androgynous” genealogy at the end of Ruth that seemed to her different stylistically from the rest of the book, and was the first thing that sort of caused me to cock my head a little in confusion. Nothing to back that up, just a feeling on her part - and one I disagreed with).

This was my frustration with this book. It’s well expressed, its ideas are thought provoking and even helpful. There are creative new looks at the texts and at characters like Phoebe, for example. But I found myself again and again thinking of the hermeneutical principle that we should interpret the implicit by the explicit. I think what bugged me so much about this book was that this principle was almost reversed. Her existential imagination ran roughshod over the explicit teachings we have, and I would have liked to have to better exposit the relevant texts to show in a biblical theological was how her points made sense.

Typically I would not be “frustrated” with a book like this - I’d just see poor exposition and thin arguments and chuck it aside. But in this case I wanted to agree with Aimee. I think she has some interesting and very helpful points to make. But frustration arose when her arguments simply weren’t very well supported. I hope she writes follow up editions and addresses the foundational supports for her thinking/conclusions.

[Aberdeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

My overall summary of this book is that it’s a helpful diagnosis for where we have gone wrong but I wish it had more concrete ideas of where to go from here. I lost track of Byrd's overall argument through a lot of smart but probably ultimately unhelpful tangents, but there were also many gems. I think this is one of those great springboards—a book that starts a conversation about something that needs a lot more research and specialized discussion.

The key message of this book is this: “It would be disobedient to Scripture to withhold women from teaching.” Byrd means, by the way, teaching women and men. She argues that it is more faithful to Scripture and better for everyone in the church if women's voices are valued and magnified alongside men's.

As she urges churches to ask, “The woman's casserole is valued. The woman's nursery duty is valued. The woman's service in VBS is valued. Is her theological contribution valued? Is her testimony valued? Is her advice valued? When she shows initiative, discernment, and resolve, do you see someone who wants to give of herself in service in all these ways, or does that make her less feminine in your eyes?”

Byrd writes as a self-proclaimed complementarian who still believes in male-only ordination, which I found fascinating. For someone who introduces the term “gynocentric interruptions”—places where the female POV interrupts the primarily male scriptural voice—she’s surprisingly conservative in the kinds of roles she thinks women should hold. This is part of her argument: she's not so interested in what particular roles women can hold as she is in the contribution of the female voice and perspective throughout the whole church, from teaching children to making consequential decisions. Certainly particular roles lend themselves to more or less of a platform but the concern is: is God’s full image able to serve so that the body of believers can be as healthy as possible? And that can happen within a variety of roles and constructions of leadership.

To keep this all straight in my head, I want to list some pros and cons I noticed in this book. Hopefully they're helpful to potential readers as well as anyone thinking through this issue.

PROS:

Whole-Bible theology rather than cherry-picked verses: If you’re looking for in-depth exegesis of “problem passages” like 1 Timothy 2:12 or 1 Corinthians 11:3, you won’t find it—but I actually love that. Of course we need detailed exegesis but so often, especially regarding this issue, we focus on that to the exclusion of biblical theology—using the whole canon to formulate doctrines. But we must use whole passages, whole books, and the whole canon to determine our thinking on any issue—that’s what Jesus, Paul, and the gospel writers do, as they trace and build upon thinking from the Old Testament to deepen our understanding of God’s will and purposes. Byrd does this as she highlights “the coactivity of the male and female voice” in Scripture through passages that go beyond Paul's particular instructions. The chapter on Ruth was especially enlightening for me. Why is the story told from her perspective instead of Boaz's? What do we gain from that? What does that tell us about the importance of hearing both women and men tell God’s story?

The dangers of parachurch organizations: Perhaps I am overstating her argument in this chapter. Byrd appreciates many parachurch organizations. But she does point out how they can complicate the issue of relationships between men and women because they do not have the same oversight, structure, or accountability as an actual local church and yet they often operate within church-specific guidelines.

This is a long quote but it sums up this problem so well: “Tension arises when parachurch organizations mimic the church's discipleship practices. Parachurch organizations are not ecclesial. They do not have the same responsibilities and promises attached to them as churches do. They do not govern with elders or bishops, but usually follow a business model with some sort of board. And yet complementarian parachurch organizations mimic their churches with an all-male board. We must ask, what are their convictions in doing this? Why are women prohibited from being on a parachurch board with no ecclesial authority? Additionally, many parachurch conferences mimic church worship services. For this reason, in complementarian parachurch organizations, women are often not invited or permitted as keynote speakers. And yet, although there may be powerful singing, prayer, and messages from the word, there is usually no call to worship, no confession of sin, no assurance of pardon, no baptism, no Lord's Supper, no benediction, and the assembly is not under any ecclesial oversight by shared elders. This is all very confusing. Are only male disciples able to share and communicate God's Word to other disciples? Complementarian parachurch organizations promote a male culture that prohibits reciprocity. This is why there are so many lucrative women's parachute ministries—they are how Christian women finally get to contribute.”

Return to sibling language + joint telos: This is one of Byrd’s best points. We must return to the biblical language in which women and men, in Christ, are seen as PRIMARILY sisters and brothers. Marriage is a particular relationship one might have with one other person of the opposite gender and both genders will be under the spiritual authority of a few people (in her view, men). But the vast majority of interactions are between siblings—and the vast majority of instructions on Christian living in the Bible are gender-neutral.

Referencing the Center for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s 2019 Nashville Statement on “biblical sexuality” which discusses “divinely ordained differences” between the sexes, Byrd asks: “Are these divinely ordained differences ultimately expressed in sex and marriage and authority and submission? The statement says nothing about friendship. God didn't design the two sexes only for marriage. What about how we were designed for the new heavens and the new earth? Where's the brother/sister language? How do men and women relate to one another in general? This is an important part of our sexuality that carries over into our eternal bodies when we will not marry. The church needs to speak more into how we are created for communion with the triune God and with one another in platonic—intimate but nonerotic—relationships. This too is a faithful witness against the sexual revolution and for promoting one another's holiness. And a great hope for those who suffer with same-sex attraction.”

And later: “Laywomen in the Scriptures are not addressed as subordinate to laymen. Like their brothers in the faith, they too are encouraged to seek their greater gifts and to mature in their knowledge of their face so they can teach others. There's no qualifier in these verses, saying the men are not to learn from women or that women are only to teach their own sex and children. Any divinely ordained differences that men and women have do not prohibit women from teaching.”

If I’m allowed to say this to an non-ordained woman—preach!!

CONS:

Exegesis: As I said above, you don’t get the verse-by-verse exegesis for “problem passages”—which I think is okay. There are other books and resources for that. but if you're expecting that, you'll be disappointed, and this book certainly needs to be supplemented with more rigorous exegetical work.

Audience: Perhaps the lack of cohesion I felt is due to the fact that it seems unclear who Byrd’s audience is. She is certainly addressing churches and especially church leaders but her style is a confusing mix of casual personal anecdotes that feel rather goofy (like her teen daughter being afraid to take things out of the oven as a picture of Christians who have never grown beyond adolescent faith) and niche academic points (like the entire metaphor of the yellow wallpaper from a twentieth-century novella exploring the marginalization and belittling of women's perspectives). It made me wonder who she’s appealing to—I could see more intellectual thought-leader types being turned off by her funny stories or sometimes surface-level biblical summaries, but I could see lay leaders feeling way over their heads in some of her more academic tangents. Plus, the “gynocentric interruption” language could be totally off-putting to a complementarian even though she’s trying to persuade just such churches and organizations. Obviously you have to appeal to different kinds of people and when you are arguing for a controversial point, you are going to offend some people regardless of the language you use. But something about her tone and the book’s structure felt random and hard to follow.

The lingering questions: I think some of Byrd’s answers are assuming other doctrines that we need deeper exploration or defenses of. For example, if you agree with her about ordination, what we really need is discussion of the why and wherefore of ordination—what does it mean and what are the scriptural and traditional bases for who gets ordained? We need that clarity before we bring gender into the debate because even male-only ordination adherents don't think all men should or can be ordained.

Then we need to sort through preaching versus teaching—is there a difference? What does it mean to preach? What about to shepherd? What kind of authority is entailed in opening up the Word and explaining it? Is it different than the authority of decision-making or counseling or being a figurehead? Are all or some types of authority open to women?

Further, as I’ve seen other reviewers bring up, for all this emphasis on how God “interrupted” the primarily-male narrative of Scripture with female voices … why not do so more, if it’s so important? Why not 50/50 male and female POVs? (I think cultural forces are the answer here, but I still wish she discussed it more.) There’s a lot of biblical hermeneutics—how we study and interpret the Bible and claim to know what it’s saying—that needs to be brought in.

Finally, for me the biggest question has to do with Byrd’s discussion of the problem of stereotyping what is biblically “masculine” and “feminine.” She points out that the lists which many complementarian spaces make of what women are allowed to do—like only being able to teach males up to a certain age—are based on cultural, rather than biblical, definitions of masculine and feminine. She says, “Ironically, these lists promoting complementarian hierarchy also fall into the egalitarian error that they are trying to prevent—they fail to demonstrate what is distinctly valuable and meaningful about the women's contribution.”

I wrote a note on my Kindle app here: “but how do we articulate this without falling into stereotypes? is it more about the necessity of both genders' perspectives - the full image of God - than it is about the particular qualities or trade each gender brings (which can differ between people and culture)?”

Byrd does not answer what is distinctly valuable about women's contributions. She says elsewhere that “I simply am feminine because I am female”—and so anything she does is therefore feminine. So is there something special about a woman’s contributions because she is a woman or because she is a human with a particular woman’s experience?

I am drawn to the idea that all that I do is feminine because I am female, but I also feel cautious because it seems that we can align ourselves to varying degrees with essential qualities of ourselves. Is everything I do human because I am human? I think not—humans can act un-human (even if ontologically they remain human—and perhaps Augustine would say they don’t).

Maybe this is the question, and it’s more a philosophical one than anything: Is feminine (or masculine) a description of what females (or males) do, or is it some kind of pure platonic form that we can move toward or away from?

And maybe the real question is this: does the Bible care about that question at all?

Or does it have entirely different priorities for how we understand gender, and if so, what are they?

Returning to Byrd, I do think she is of some help here because she repeatedly brings us back to the goal of a healthy church whose members support each other to their utmost for the glory of God and good of the world. Our goal is not ultimately to discover what manhood and womanhood mean so much as it is to love God and love our neighbor. Of course, clarifying what we mean by these words and encoding it into practices is part of how we incarnate that love. But ranking the priorities is helpful.

***

Overall, I appreciate Byrd’s defense of the Bible against the claims of it being a patriarchal document; her criticism of often-watered-down women’s ministries (see Phylicia Masonheimer on this); her questioning of whether segregated gendered teaching is actually helpful to the church; her analysis of the issues with being primarily discipled by parachurch organizations; her biblical theology that traces the role of women’s voices throughout the whole canon; and her emphasis on women and men being siblings in Christ and called to the same gifts, fruits of the Spirit, and mission. I’d like to see more thorough study of some of the underlying questions on gender, authority, and ordination, as well as more practical suggestions and case studies of how churches actually do value women’s voices more and let go of culturally dictated hierarchies that stifle half of God’s image and stunt the whole church from its potential.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

It can be a slippery slope when you begin judging the truthfulness of a claim by anecdotal examples of abuse and error, but there also comes a point where the fruit bears witness to the tree. I have been irritated, troubled, exasperated by some of the fruit of “Complementarian” teaching for a good while and have often wondered how biblical doctrines could produce such reckless and harmful results. But, the complementarianism of CBMW and the like has been the assumed truth in my Christian communities since I came to faith as a teenager, so I have always figured that I was missing something and also felt that questioning it would lead me down the slippery slope of damnation (a.k.a, liberalism...I mean, those terms are synonymous, right?). Thankfully, more and more cracks have appeared in the echo chamber I constructed for myself, and as my Christian tent has become larger and larger, the words of God in Scripture have become sweeter and sweeter. And I am more convinced than ever that the rotten fruit of hyper-headship patriarchy really does represent the rottenness of certain strands (key emphasis) of Complementarian teaching.

Aimee Byrd’s *Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood* offers a great look at the assumptions Complementarianism is based upon and why these presuppositions might not be 1) biblically based and 2) practically helpful. Byrd interacts with a wide variety of scholars and covers a lot of ground Scripturally to get to a simple point: God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Yes, God organized his Church to practically function under the ordained authority of male leadership. But no, I am not wrong for learning from a woman. And no, my identity is not found in my manliness, and my wife’s identity is not found in her femininity. And no, no, no, no, no, the ontological relationship amongst the Trinity is not one of submission. It has felt at times like the attitude towards women in certain Complementarian circles has been closer to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s classic “Know your role, and shut your mouth.” It is encouraging to see that God’s perspective on women is “Know that you bear the image of the eternal God, and go forth bearing witness to his goodness.”

Byrd provides for everyone in this book. If you want to be offended, there will be plenty of opportunities. Egalitarians will certainly “Amen” large portions and then take Byrd to task for others. Complementarians will be equally outraged. Someone somewhere will quote Paul circa 1 Cor 4 and, in the spirit of 1992 Rodney King, say “Can’t we all get along.” But her handling of key texts is persuasive. No, this is not an exhaustive treatment of proof-texts. For a 240-page, popular-level book, it is fair to argue that extensive exegesis of every gotcha-text would be beyond the scope. More importantly, Byrd interacts with the context of passages as well as the whole of Scripture, which are a couple of reasons that this work is helpful well beyond gender issues. Her interactions with Eve (ezers), Ruth (gynocentric voice), and Phoebe (Romans) alone are well worth the investment. I am certain that the more educated on the Complementarian side can produce convincing arguments of their own, but for those of us who have long sensed the limits of popular Complementarian teaching, Byrd’s book is a gasp of beautiful, fresh, life-giving air.

The book I recommended most in 2017 was Tish Warren’s *Liturgy of the Ordinary*, 2018 was Karen Swallow Prior’s *On Reading Well* and, at least as of June 2020, this is the book I am telling everyone to read (2019 was pretty much all Wendell Berry for me, so I probably missed out on some awesome books!). I am thankful that God has seen fit to provide me with female voices from which to learn so much.