GOSPEL AND GENDER—A TRINITARIAN ENGAGEMENT WITH BEING MALE AND FEMALE IN CHRIST

Written by Douglas A. Campbell (Ed.) Reviewed By Laura Nelson

The nine essays brought together in this volume claim to be distinctive on two fronts. First, they seek to reflect on both genders as they relate together, thus not treating one gender and its questions in isolation. The second distinction is an attempt to treat questions of gender in the context of trinitarian relationships. The editor also notes an additional methodological commitment to the biblical witness as a basis for theological reflection.

The first trio of essays is exegetical: two contributions on Galatians 3:28 and one on 1 Corinthians 11:10. The opening essay by Judith Gundry-Volf is an excellent and careful rebuttal of feminist readings of Galatians which claim a total end to difference between the sexes. She notes that although Paul has nothing to say about being male and female elsewhere in Galatians he has a great deal to say about being Jew and Gentile and the transformation that being ‘in Christ’ brings to those identity markers. Hence, by studying what the assertion, ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek’, means we can determine the sense of the parallel assertion that ‘there is no male and female’. By looking carefully at the context in the letter and parallel passages in other Pauline epistles she concludes that being in Christ does not mean that such markers (of ethnicity or gender) are abolished in Christ, but that they are irrelevant ‘with respect to salvation and participation in the eschatological people of God’ (22). The main focus for Paul is in fact that all the groups mentioned are saved the same way. This is because the problem is not located in the differences which exist between the groups but their ‘sameness’ in being alike prisoners of sin. One cannot help wishing that the other two contributors to this section had built on or at least interacted with Gundry-Volf’s conclusions, as they both assume quite a different understanding of this key verse.

The remaining six contributions are broadly theological. Woodhead launches a useful critique of the idea that gender identity defines who we are as people in Christ. Elaine Storkey makes a powerful and well-reasoned defence of Christ’s ability to save women and the need to restore confidence in Christology. She identifies the universality of sin as the major flaw in all the feminist manipulations that seek to deny a male Christ (and his death as a suffering victim) a central place in the saving message of the Christian faith. Other contributions on female imagery and on the idea of developing separate male and female theological perspectives contain some pertinent reflections. However, they still seem to be building on assumptions based on an inadequate reading of Galatians 3:28 (the simplex ‘all differences are now abolished reading that the opening essay shows to be unmerited). The closing two theological contributions bring a trinitarian reflection to the fore and also fundamental questions on the nature of language about God. Theologically these important chapters are the most dense and repay careful reading although the interaction with biblical texts is often superficial. For example Volf ‘reflects theologically’ on some key texts on gender with this preface.

All there [texts] appear in implicitly or explicitly subordinationist passages will simply disregard the subordinationism as culturally conditioned and interpret the statements from within an egalitarian understanding of the trinitarian relations and from the perspective of the egalitarian thrust of such central biblical assertions as the one found in Galatians 3:28 (171).

Each contribution seems highly sympathetic to the feminist theological enterprise at the outset, but then having given it a generous hearing tends to be suprisingly strong in its critique, taking a fairly conservative stance. However, this reader at least felt that there was still too much conceded on a number of occasions and at key points many of the contributors revealed a selective approach to the biblical witness which means they betray a weakness they shared with the liberal feminists they critique.


Laura Nelson

Paris