On Ancient Habits & New Insights

In my introduction to Jon Marshall's review of From Genesis to Junia last week I made the observation that it is rare for there to be anything groundbreaking in recent books published on the roles of men and women in the church. For complementarians this is unsurprising: they need to simply hold to the orthodox patterns and practice of the church through almost the entirety of its existence, and, in that sense, have nothing new to say. On the other side of the aisle, the burden is on egalitarians who need to demonstrate that the church has, in some measure, been in error in its interpretation and application of scripture through all those centuries - but it does feel rare that anything genuinely new is said here. In our cultural moment it is easier to be an egalitarian, but from the perspective of church history it is easier to be a complementarian. This means that pretty much all of us feel uncomfortable at times!The ever insightful, gracious, and fair Gavin Ortlund offers a great…