In 1992, when as a young scholar I published a book defending an egalitarian application of passages about gender in Paul, I was too naïve to recognize the religious minefield into which I was wading. I am now older, gentler and wiser (with some scars to show for it), but grateful to know that I was part of a long egalitarian tradition. Denying that long tradition, some nonegalitarian critics have denounced as unbiblical those who simply employ the Bible differently than they do.
The passages about gender in Pauline writings raise a variety of issues, but for the sake of space I focus on one of the most explicit and thus enduring: the question of women's public ministry. Some argue that Christians must apply particular biblical passages about this question in the same way in all times and cultures. Others of us respond that more passages appear supportive than restrictive, that we should understand the culture that these passages addressed, and that perhaps even the biblical authors themselves might have applied the principles differently in different cultures such as our own.
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