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Behind the Trinity Tussle

For complementarian women, the debate was more than abstract.

The evangelical blogosphere engaged in a major theological debate about the Trinity this summer, with more than 150 posts published within five weeks. Malcolm Yarnell, theology department chair at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he had “never seen anything like it.”

The debate focused on Christ’s relationship to God the Father. Some argue that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father, while others say the Son was subordinate in his earthly life only. It transformed a decades-old proxy war between some complementarians and egalitarians over what the Trinity reveals about God’s design for gender roles into a civil war between complementarians (see CT’s online explainer, “Gender and the Trinity,” June ’16).

While complementarian women wrote only a handful of the posts, they played a significant role in launching the conversation and raising concerns over how the distinction can play out in the pews.

The original post came from Presbyterian pastor Liam Goligher. He stated that theologians Bruce Ware and Wayne Grudem are distorting Trinitarian relations in order to uphold their view of gender roles. (Grudem is the founder of the complementarian Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood [CBMW].)

Goligher’s post appeared at Housewife Theologian, a blog written by Aimee Byrd and hosted at an Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals website. Byrd, alongside co-hosts Carl Trueman and Todd Pruitt, have challenged certain complementarian rhetoric and teaching for years.

“She is the one continually bringing it up to these men and calling out patriarchy,” said Hannah Anderson, author of Made for More, a book about Christian women and identity. “She can …

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