Book Review: Evangelical Feminism
Monday, June 25, 2007 at 2:11PM 
A New Path to Liberalism? by Wayne Grudem
The focus of this book by Wayne Grudem is his concern that evangelical feminism will prove, over time, to draw people into theological liberalism. By liberalism, Grudem is referring to a system of belief that does not accept the Bible as the supreme authority in the lives of believers, or accept the absolute truthfulness of what is written in it.
Grudem bases this concern of his in many of the arguments made in support of egalitarianism. They are, he says, often exactly the same arguments used first in liberal Protestant denomination—arguments that deny (although sometimes in subtle ways) that the text of scripture is completely error free, and that what we find written there is the final arbitrator of things in a believer’s life and in the life of the church.
Grudem’s first argument is from history. He makes the case that, generally speaking, denominations that ordain women are also denominations that at least tolerate liberalism. The lists are interesting, and it does seem that the ordination of women and a denial of the inerrancy of scripture (or at least a tolerance of those who deny the inerrancy of scripture) tend to go hand in hand within denominations. I’m not sure exactly what this proves, but the correlation is worth noting.
The second section of the book is a collection of short chapters (fifteen in all), with each one examining a single argument put forward by evangelical feminists. Each arguments examined is one that Grudem believes undermines the authority of scripture. I won’t run through the various arguments, but I will give you one example, and a summary of Grudem’s reasoning for his charge that this particular argument undermines scripture.
