From India came the old stories about the juggernaut, the massive cart that carried weighty idols, and as it crunched the cobblestone roads, would occasionally crush a stumbling pedestrian. Here in the West we have seen something like the old juggernaut. Young people who attend the universities will tell you, if they are honest, that more than once they have felt like little creatures scurrying in the path of the oncoming massive bulk of secular humanism. This juggernaut waves off the Bible as an authoritative voice. In particular it looks down on the biblical idea of subjection and headship. It says, “Stand against our movement and become bug juice.” One wheel on this machine is feminism.
Which, if it can, will crush the biblical teaching of the respective roles of men and women. So imposing are the teachings of feminism in the universities and in the media that many conservative and Bible oriented people have succumbed. They think that to call a truce is our best chance of survival against this irresistible force. So the evangelicals scurry back to their Bibles to “re-examine the traditional views of the church about the roles of men and women” in order to appease the giant. But even with their noses in their Bibles, it is that background noise, that crunch, crunch sound of the oncoming wheels, that keeps some of our fine evangelical scholars from thinking clearly.
Is thinking clearly about this matter really a question of perspective? Are we overly concerned about how we may appear to a sarcastic world, or are we altogether concerned about how we stand before a holy God? This world focus problem can be tricky. Worldliness will plead that it’s real concern is for greater evangelistic outreach, while it urges us to compromise so as to avoid the stigma of the cross. Appealing? Yes, and Bible believing people can stumble at this point.
How does this play out? Joe University Freshman comes home for the New Year’s break after finding shelter all semester by attending a parachurch organization on a secular university campus, and behold, he has been utterly indoctrinated by evangelical feminism. I wish Joe’s situation was the exception. But it isn’t. Wherever we find believers basking under the big tent of modern evangelicalism we will see young and old ingesting the tenants of evangelical feminism. And they are often eager to share their new insights in the local church fellowship.
Alexander Strauch has blessed the church with a new book, Men and Women: Equal Yet Different, A Brief Study of the Biblical Passages on Gender. This book does not target radical feminism. Rather it answers those known as evangelical feminists like Ward Gasque, Gretchen G. Hull (the granddaughter of Arno C. Gaebelein), and Derek Kidner. This, like brother Strauch’s other books, is utilitarian. Read it, pass it around, write in its margins, add your insights, and give it to your young people. This is the kind of book that you can implement. Don’t judge the book by its size. At 128 pages, it is lean, non-technical, and to-the-point. One thing I personally admire in Strauch’s writing is his reverence for God in His Word. When he sees a thing clearly in the scriptures he talks about it, but in points questionable he stops short of speculation.
The book is not exhaustive, and says so in its title. Ninety per cent of the book is exposition. It makes a passing glance at all the verses while focusing on the linchpins. While writing graciously, it is obvious that evangelical feminism is in trouble before we get past Genesis 2. So if we want to talk Bible, then brother Strauch has written a book that talks Bible, and point by point takes up the major tenants of evangelical feminism.