How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership by Dr. Alan Johnson

ALAN F. JOHNSON (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Christian Ethics and Emeritus Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE) at Wheaton College. He is the author of commentaries on Paul's letter to the Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation and co-author with Robert Webber of What Christians Believe. His latest book, pictured here, is entitled How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership.

This book features a number of autobiographical accounts as to how various persons have come to change their minds about women in leadership. Well-known evangelical leaders—individuals and couples, males and females from a broad range of denominational affiliation and ethnic diversity—share their surprising journeys from a more or less restrictive view to an open inclusive view that recognizes a full shared partnership of leadership in the home and in the church based on gifts not gender. How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership offers a positive vision for the future of women and men together as partners of equal worth without competitiveness in the work of equipping this and the next generation of Christian disciples for the 'work of ministry' and service in the Kingdom of God.

There have long been attempts by fundamentalists conservatives to paint liberal moderate anyone who believes that women can be as gifted as men, can lead or teach men, or can hold positions of "authority" over men. Aside from the fact it is nigh impossible to define authority the way Jesus defines it (servanthood) and have any objection to women in leadership, it is a breath of fresh air to read a book edited by a bona-fide evangelical inerrantist who is showing that it is not God who is changing His mind about women, but fallen, fallible men who must change theirs.

The next time I hear an evangelical conservative complain that evangelicals are "listening to culture" and "changing their views on women" because of the feminist movement, I very well may send them a free copy of this book that once again proves it is not the Bible that fails men, but men who fail the Bible.