Of course, there are legitimately complicated questions of Biblical hermeneutics and, like, say, the debates about same-sex attraction or Biblical nonviolence, some who hold to certain views have hardly studied the texts involved. The books below make the case better than I can and so we highly recommend them. To get our cards on the table, I will just say this: we believe that Christian patriarchy and the relatively recently coined phrase “Biblical womanhood” (and “manhood”) are wrong-headed and can be hurtful to both our witness in the world and to women and girls involved in the church.

Whatever the outcome, we hope you order some of these books which I’m about to suggest and they are widely read, and seriously discussed. Sometimes we read books that we disagree with and they don’t change our mind, but we know the “other side” better, which is nice. If you’re not inclined to appreciate these sorts of books, we thank you for bearing with us - maybe even giving it a try. Good people can disagree about such things and often we learn as we stretch ourselves into new territory. We’ve studied the Biblical texts and stand with those churches that fully support women in leadership at every level of the church and culture. Authors as diverse as James Olthius from Toronto and Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen from Philadelphia and my grandma, a Free Methodist occasional revival preacher (not quite as noteworthy as Len Sweet’s grandmother that he writes about in Mother Tongue but she comes close) have shaped us. We’ve identified ourselves as evangelical feminists, I suppose, since we read All We’re Meant to Be in the early ‘70s. This new set of reviews means a lot to us. This Covid thing has been hard and Beth and I are grateful beyond words for your support of our family biz here in PA. There’s some good stuff reviewed and we are glad for those who have sent orders our way.

I know some of you have studied those previous lists and we’re glad to continue to offer those 20% off deals on those recent BookNotes. I often start with some thank you to those who have ordered books from us lately and perhaps remind folks of our previous BookNotes.

FOUR GREAT, MUST-READ BOOKS ABOUT WOMEN, PATRIARCHY & EVANGELICAL FAITHĪs is often the case, I struggled with apprehension about how to start this BookNotes column.

Kristin kobes du mez books