Christian egalitarianism

Based on Wikipedia: Christian egalitarianism

The Radical Claim That Upended Two Thousand Years of Church Hierarchy

In 1876, a woman named Anna Oliver walked across a stage in Boston to receive something no American woman had ever held: a Bachelor of Divinity degree from a Methodist seminary. Four years later, she stood before the Methodist Episcopal Church's General Conference and demanded the right to be ordained as clergy.

They said no.

But her challenge had planted a seed. It would take another seventy-six years—until 1956—for Methodist women to finally receive full ordination rights. Oliver died in 1892, never seeing the fruit of what she started. Yet her story captures something essential about Christian egalitarianism: the belief that the Bible, properly understood, actually demands equality between men and women, and that centuries of male-dominated church leadership got it wrong.

What Christian Egalitarianism Actually Claims

Let's be precise about what we're discussing. Christian egalitarianism—sometimes called biblical equality—argues that gender, by itself, neither privileges nor limits what a person can do in church or at home. It's not saying men and women are identical. It's saying that both were designed to complement each other, and that neither should hold permanent authority over the other simply because of their sex.

This might sound unremarkable to modern ears. But within Christianity, it represents a direct challenge to two competing viewpoints that have dominated church history.

The first is complementarianism, which holds that men and women have distinct, complementary roles—with men as leaders and women in supportive positions. The second is patriarchy, a more hierarchical view where male authority extends broadly over family and church structures.

Egalitarians argue that both perspectives misread the Bible. They claim that verses used to justify male dominance are either misinterpreted, taken out of cultural context, or contradicted by other passages that advocate for equality.

The Key Text That Changed Everything

If Christian egalitarianism has a founding scripture, it's a single verse from Paul's letter to the Galatians, chapter three, verse twenty-eight:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Read that again slowly.

Paul is listing the three most fundamental divisions in the ancient world. Ethnicity: Jew versus Greek. Social status: slave versus free. Gender: male versus female. And he's declaring that in Christ, all three dissolve into unity.

Egalitarian scholars see this as revolutionary. Paul isn't just making a spiritual point about souls being equal before God. He's dismantling the social hierarchies that structured every aspect of ancient life. If there's no male or female "in Christ," then what justification remains for excluding women from leadership?

Complementarians respond that Paul is speaking only about salvation, not social roles. Both sides agree Paul wrote other passages that seem to restrict women's authority. The disagreement centers on how to reconcile those texts with this sweeping declaration of equality.

Jesus and the Women Who Followed Him

Egalitarians point to Jesus himself as the model. In first-century Palestine, women occupied a precarious social position. They couldn't testify in court. They received no formal religious education. Public interactions between unrelated men and women were scandalous.

Jesus ignored all of it.

He taught women directly, including Mary of Bethany, who sat at his feet like a male disciple would. He healed women in public, touched women considered unclean by religious law, and spoke privately with a Samaritan woman—a double violation of social norms. After his resurrection, according to all four Gospels, women were the first witnesses. In a culture where women couldn't testify in court, Jesus chose them as the primary eyewitnesses to the central event of Christianity.

All three Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—record Jesus saying something striking about leadership:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.

Egalitarians interpret this as Jesus rejecting hierarchical domination in favor of servant leadership. If "lording over" others is forbidden, they ask, how can permanent male authority over women be justified?

The Curious Case of Priscilla and Aquila

One of the most intriguing pieces of evidence comes from a married couple mentioned six times in the New Testament: Priscilla and Aquila. They were tentmakers who worked alongside Paul and hosted house churches in their home.

Here's what's unusual. The order of their names alternates. Aquila comes first in the first, third, and fifth mentions. Priscilla comes first in the second, fourth, and sixth.

Why does this matter? In ancient writing, the more prominent person was typically named first. The fact that Priscilla frequently precedes her husband suggests she may have been the more prominent ministry leader. Some scholars believe she led their household and their ministry work. The Latin Vulgate and certain Greek manuscripts actually list Priscilla first in Acts 18:26, where the couple corrects the theology of a preacher named Apollos—a teaching role that would have been remarkable for a woman in that era.

The Denominations That Got There First

Christian egalitarianism isn't just academic theology. Many denominations have embraced it as practice.

The Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, were arguably the first. Since their founding in the 1650s, they've affirmed the absolute equality of all members without gender distinction. Women have always been allowed to speak, teach, and lead in Quaker meetings.

The Wesleyan Church grounds equality in creation theology—the belief that since both men and women were made in God's image, both should participate equally in ministry and leadership. The United Methodist Church ordains women at all levels of church structure. The Episcopal Church not only ordains women as priests and bishops but maintains an active anti-sexism task force.

Some denominations that maintain conservative positions on sexuality still embrace women in ministry. The Church of the Nazarene, the Assemblies of God, and the Free Methodist Church all affirm women as pastors and church leaders. This creates an interesting paradox: these churches are often labeled "conservative" because of their views on marriage and sexuality, yet they're more progressive than many "liberal" institutions when it comes to female leadership.

The Organizations Fighting for Biblical Equality

The modern egalitarian movement gained organizational momentum in the 1980s. The first group explicitly created to advocate for Christian egalitarianism was "Men, Women and God," founded in the United Kingdom in 1984.

Three years later, American evangelical leaders formed their own organization. Catherine Clark Kroeger, Gilbert Bilezikian, W. Ward Gasque, Gretchen Gaebelein Hull, and Alvera Mickelsen launched "Men, Women and God: Christians for Biblical Equality"—later shortened to just "Christians for Biblical Equality," often abbreviated C.B.E. The organization incorporated in January 1988 and now claims members from over one hundred denominations across more than sixty-five countries.

C.B.E. publishes a journal called Priscilla Papers—named, of course, after that frequently-first-mentioned tentmaker. The organization's statement of faith includes this declaration:

We believe in the equality and essential dignity of men and women of all ethnicities, ages, and classes. We recognize that all persons are made in the image of God and are to reflect that image in the community of believers, in the home, and society.

The Opposition: Complementarianism Strikes Back

Not everyone agrees, obviously. The complementarian response has been equally organized.

In 1988—the same year C.B.E. incorporated—the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood published what's known as the Danvers Statement. Named after Danvers, Massachusetts, where it was drafted, the statement responds to what its authors called "widespread uncertainty and confusion in our culture regarding the complementary differences between masculinity and femininity."

Prominent theologians contributed to a book called Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which attempts to rebut egalitarian arguments point by point. John Piper, Wayne Grudem, D.A. Carson, and others argue that Galatians 3:28 speaks only to spiritual equality before God, not to functional equality in church leadership or marriage.

In 2017, the same organization published the Nashville Statement, which affirmed differences between male and female as part of God's creative design. The Gospel Coalition, another influential conservative evangelical network, states in its founding documents that "men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching ways."

The Roman Catholic Church has taken an even stronger position. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—later Pope Benedict XVI—wrote a 2004 letter warning against viewing gender as merely a cultural construction. He argued that differences between men and women are not just surface-level but ontological—meaning they're rooted in the very nature of being itself, not just in biology or culture.

Three Flavors of Feminist Theology

Within Christian egalitarianism, there are actually several distinct philosophical approaches. The theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether identified three major strands, each with its own logic.

Eschatological feminism takes an unusual approach. It argues that the original human—Adam—was androgynous, neither male nor female. Gender itself was a result of the Fall, the original corruption of humanity. Through baptism and spiritual transformation, Christians can return to that pre-gendered state. This view has roots in ancient mysticism and asceticism, and it explains why some early Christian women embraced celibacy: by transcending sexuality, they believed they were transcending the gender hierarchy that sexuality created.

Liberal feminism takes a more practical stance. It doesn't reject gender or sexuality but argues that equality was God's original design, later distorted by historical injustice. The solution isn't to transcend gender but to reform institutions—including the church—to restore the equality that was always intended. As Ruether puts it, liberal feminism calls for "liberation within society, rather than removal from it."

Romantic feminism takes yet another approach. It embraces gender differences but inverts the traditional hierarchy. Women, in this view, possess superior moral and spiritual qualities—altruism, sensitivity, purity. Men, corrupted by their positions of power, manifest pride, aggression, and dominance. Women's "goodness" has been preserved precisely because patriarchy kept them out of corrupting power structures.

This romantic strand has its own internal divisions. Conservative romantics believe women should stay home to preserve their moral purity—leaving for the workplace would corrupt them. Reformist romantics believe women should enter public life precisely because their moral superiority is needed to reform male-dominated institutions. Radical romantics—rooted in radical feminism—reject male culture entirely, questioning whether men are even capable of moral redemption.

The Imago Dei Argument

At the heart of egalitarian theology lies a concept called the Imago Dei—Latin for "the image of God." Genesis states that God created humanity in his own image, male and female. Egalitarians argue this establishes fundamental equality at the deepest possible level: both sexes equally bear the divine image.

If both men and women equally reflect God's image, egalitarians ask, on what basis can one be permanently subordinated to the other? They point to consistent biblical themes: both sexes were equally responsible for the original sin, both are equally redeemed by Christ, and both are equally gifted by the Holy Spirit for service.

This last point is crucial. Egalitarians argue that spiritual gifts—teaching, prophecy, leadership, pastoral care—are distributed by the Spirit without regard to gender. If God gives a woman the gift of teaching, they ask, who are we to tell her she cannot use it?

Notable Egalitarians Through History

The movement has attracted some remarkable figures.

William and Catherine Booth founded the Salvation Army in 1865. William once quipped about his organization's workforce: "Some of my best men are women!" Catherine was an influential preacher in her own right, and the Army has always ordained women as officers.

Aimee Semple McPherson founded Angelus Temple in Los Angeles in 1923, building one of the first megachurches in American history. She pioneered the use of radio for religious broadcasting and drew crowds of thousands to her dramatic, illustrated sermons.

F.F. Bruce was one of the twentieth century's most respected biblical scholars, serving as professor of biblical criticism and exegesis at the University of Manchester. His careful academic work lent scholarly credibility to egalitarian interpretations.

Gilbert Bilezikian, a founding elder of Willow Creek Community Church, wrote Beyond Sex Roles in 1985, which became a foundational text for evangelical egalitarians. Catherine Clark Kroeger co-founded C.B.E. and co-authored influential works including I Suffer Not a Woman, which offered alternative interpretations of Paul's most restrictive-sounding passages.

The Ongoing Debate

This argument isn't going away anytime soon.

Complementarians point to specific Pauline passages that seem to restrict women's roles: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man" (1 Timothy 2:12). They argue that hierarchy existed before the Fall—Adam was created first—and that male leadership reflects the relationship between Christ and the church.

Egalitarians respond that these restrictive passages address specific historical situations, not universal principles. First-century Ephesus, where Timothy served, had problems with false teachers—possibly including uneducated women spreading heresy. Paul's restriction, in this view, was a local solution to a local problem, not a timeless prohibition.

Both sides agree on more than they might admit. Both believe the Bible is authoritative. Both believe men and women are different. Both believe both sexes have essential roles in God's plan. They disagree about whether those differences require hierarchical structure or mutual submission.

What Mutual Submission Actually Means

Egalitarians often speak of "mutual submission"—a concept drawn from Ephesians 5:21, where Paul writes: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

This comes immediately before the famous passage about wives submitting to husbands. Egalitarians argue that the "one another" sets the context for everything that follows. Yes, wives submit to husbands—but husbands also submit to wives. Everyone submits to everyone, as a way of life, not as a hierarchy.

In this view, leadership isn't about rank but about service. Authority isn't about control but about responsibility. When Jesus said "it shall not be so among you," he was creating a new kind of community where power flows downward in service rather than upward in dominance.

It's a radical vision. And whether you find it convincing depends largely on how you read a handful of contested texts, written two thousand years ago, in languages most people can't read, addressing situations most people can't imagine.

Anna Oliver couldn't convince the Methodist Church in 1880. But someone convinced them by 1956. The debate continues, in seminaries and living rooms and church board meetings around the world, as Christians try to figure out what equality actually means when you take the Bible seriously.