Review: The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right

The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right by Lisa Sharon Harper
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Harper writes with probably the most profound authenticity that I have read of any author recently; her immense pain from her troubled growing up years grieved me. If you ever read this Harper, I'm so sorry that you had been tactlessly and gracelessly told you could not serve in ministry because you were a woman. I am so so so very happy that you received supernatural healing and restoration!

Harper writes with lively illustrations and gripping accounts from her life. She references other Writers more often than other authors would, by a clear margin. Unfortunately a popular level title this probably prevented her from citing other authors with differing views and her responses to those. Unfortunately, many of her substantives were supported using outdated theories (for example the JEDP documentary hypothesis in the early chapters touched that had been conclusively rebuffed by modern scholarship). Also, she takes a proof-texting approach to Scripture. Also, her low view of Scripture can be seen for example from her explaining that certain problematic passages (to Eglaritians) that the teachings of Scripture are culture and context-specific and do not apply to us today (p96). Hence I could not bring myself to complete reading the book. I appreciate and affirm so so very much the desire to set other women free from the misnomer that they cannot serve in ministry, but I am unable to vouch for the problematic hermeneutics and proof-texting here.

I spent months reading 40 or so scholarly titles to ascertain my position about women in ministry (as I was torn that the complementarian view seemed to be better supported by the plain reading of Scripture and sound hermeneutics, yet on the other hand, I have been thoroughly blessed by the many Christian women leaders and ministers growing up and would be crushed if they were not allowed to serve in ministry).

With an exegetical meta-analysis of commentators of 1 Tim. 2:9-15 as a starting point, I came to a different conclusion as Harper. Here are a few points that I found particularly helpful:

1. Although of us would identify with Schreiner’s desire “to believe that there are no limitations for women in ministry and that every ministry position is open to them,” his unwillingness to “leap over the evidence of the text” to adopt the egalitarian position is just as real a consideration.

2. An attractive middle-ground position appears to be Blomberg’s “modified hierarchicalism” that makes a full egalitarian argument with the exception of the senior pastor role being reserved for males only.

3. Even if Paul’s commands are intended for all time and situations, Blomberg propositions that it is necessary to consider what the contemporary function equivalent is to the NT office of the elder/overseer, so that women could then hold any other subordinate pastoral role.

4. We would do well to heed Keener’s advice to “give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to who claim that God called them and who evidence that call in their lives, rather than passing judgment on them.”

5. Schreiner calls his fellow complementarians to “bend over backward to love those with whom we disagree, and to assure them that we hope and pray that God will bless their ministries, even though we believe that it is a mistake for women to take on a pastoral role.”

6. To paraphrase Blomberg’s indictment of complementarians into positive action that they can heed: be less preoccupied with keeping men in positions of authority; rather nurture women to become all that God wants them to be in the spirit of Paul’s radically redefined patriarchy that is consistent with biblical servant leadership.”

Bibliography and further comments
1. Schreiner, "An Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9-15," in Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, 2nd ed, 86.
2. Blomberg, "Neither Hierarchicalist nor Egalitarian: Gender Roles in Paul," in Two Views on Women in Ministry, 326.
3. Blomberg, "Neither Hierarchicalist nor Egalitarian: Gender Roles in Paul," in Two Views on Women in Ministry, 369. Contemporary congregationally organized churches would presumably identify their senior pastor (or in single-staff churches the sole pastor) as this functional equivalent of the elder/overseer. In Presbyterian and episcopal forms of church government, one could argue that the equivalent is the person at the head of larger denominational structures.
4. Keener, Paul, Women & Wives: Marriage and Women's Ministry in the Letters of Paul. Keener suggests that it is a dangerous thing to turn people from their call, or to oppose their call if it is genuinely from God. On what basis do any of us men who are called prove our call? We trust inner conviction and the fruit of holy lives and teaching and faithfulness to that call, and if these evidences are insufficient demonstration of divine calling in the case of our sisters, how shall we attest our own?
5. Schreiner, "An Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9-15," in Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, 2nd ed, 85-86.
6. Blomberg, "Neither Hierarchicalist nor Egalitarian: Gender Roles in Paul," in Two Views on Women in Ministry, 372.

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