Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood – A (I Hope) Friendly Review

Aimee Byrd, for those who are unfamiliar, is a popular blogger, podcaster, conference speaker, and writer. She is a member in good standing in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and has recently published a book titled Recovering from Biblical manhood and Womanhood.

Before I get into my review here I want to lay my cards on the table. In the world of book reviews and theological discourse, there are hostile critics and there are friendly critics. I hope to fall in the camp of friendly critics. I respect and appreciate many of Aimee’s contributions to the discussion in question, I share many of the concerns which prompted the writing of this book, and I even share many of the conclusions (more on this later). I have corresponded with Aimee privately through Facebook on a number of occasions and have considered her to be a co-belligerent in both the Gospel and in the response to a dangerous form of unorthodox neo-patriarchalism which has deficient anthropology and in some cases a heretical doctrine of the Trinity. Because of my intention to position this critique as a friendly one, I have opted to use Aimee’s first name throughout this review, rather than the customary dispassionate use of an author’s last name.

Further, I have only listened to the audio book version of the book so far so there may be some nuances missed in my first pass having to do with quotations and citations.

At this point I am not attempting to offer an academic critique or review of her book, but simply want to share some of my thoughts, reflections, and concerns after listening through.

If you are looking for a more thorough and detailed review/critique, Mark Jones has offered his thoughts in an article which is irenic, thorough, critical, and prima facie seeks to build a bridge with Aimee and foster further dialog. Another excellent entry from Jonathan Master (One of the most gracious and charitable public commentators I know) seeks to present some questions regarding Aimee’s overall program, which in many ways this book is a culmination of.

The Good

First, there are a number of things presented in this book that no orthodox Reformed thinker should question. I will simply enumerate them here (in no particular order) without further explanation:

• Only qualified men may hold ordained office in the Church
• Men and Women are both imagers of God and as such have intrinsic dignity and worth which must be respected by all Christians
• Pastors can, should, and must, include the women of the Church as active members of the life of the Church
• Any theology which minimizes the essential quality of women to be props or supports for men ought to be both rejected and opposed
• There is great danger in handing over the disciple-making task of the Church to anything that is not the Church, especially when that thing actively mimics the Church
• Any theology which distorts, diminishes, or utilizes theology proper as a prop to support a 2nd or 3rd order doctrine ought to be both rejected and opposed
• Women can, should, and must play an active role in handing on the faith which was once delivered to the saints to the next generation
• There are essential differences between men and women

Beyond these points, there are a number of places where Aimee beautifully presents and summarizes the Gospel from various texts of the Bible. These are remarkable for their excellent use of Biblical theological categories from texts in which the Gospel is often overlooked (Ruth and Judges particularly).

It also makes sense to point out that her section which seeks to dismantle EFS/ESS/ERAS does so in spades. It is an excellent bit of theological polemics.

Further, I found the book to be pleasant to listen to and generally appealing aesthetically. It is clear that Aimee is a competent writer who is able to engage her readers with a mastery of the English language.

The Bad

All that said, my overall impression of the content of the book is one of concern. The concerns, in my mind, fall into a few distinct categories.

Use of Egalitarian Sources and Arguments

One of the primary concerns I have coming out of my first pass through this book is Aimee’s appropriation of Egalitarian Sources and Arguments. While it is one thing to make use of a source you ordinarily would not when they are particularly insightful or potent, there is very little in the way of actual critical interaction with these sources. Aimee presents many of the sources without any disagreement or even a nod to the fact that there are important areas in which they would come to very different conclusions.

On the flip side, there is almost no interaction with complementarian sources in either a critical or approving sense. While there is some use of complementarian sources, in many instances these are used in auxiliary ways supporting other parts of the argument that do not directly relate to the issue of gender parity.

The lack of critical reflections on some of these sources leave the reader with the impression that Aimee is accepting their arguments wholesale. Even as someone who knows that not to be the case, it is difficult to overcome the trajectory.

Further, there are a number of egalitarian arguments that Aimee appears to more or less accept as correct. However, she utilizes these arguments to come to a very different conclusion, without much in the way of justification for why she ends up in a different place. In many of these cases, I’m not sure that the original author would appreciate that their argument has been used in a way contrary to their original intention. It is clear that these arguments were not intended to support any form of gender complementarity, but Aimee is using them to do just that.

Half-Baked Argumentation

I toyed around with naming this review Aimee Byrd and the Half-Baked Pizza. I opted for a more neutral title, but this is a play off an analogy that Aimee uses in the book. She recounts a story of her daughter being ill equipped to remove a pizza from the oven, and parlays that into an analogy of a Church which is creating Christians who are ill equipped to take the pizza of their faith out of the proverbial oven.

Playing off that analogy, my assessment is that the argumentation in this book is only half done. Unfortunately, Aimee does not well support much of the argumentation she utilizes in this book. As I mentioned earlier, she often uses egalitarian arguments which should (and I would argue do) lead to egalitarian conclusions if followed to their logical end, but ends up using them to support her brand of complementarian conclusion without a lot in the way of justification for why.

What’s more, in much of the book her use of sources is more-or-less an appeal to authority fallacy in the current form. She often quotes a scholar making a claim, and then proceeds forward treating that claim as though it is now an established and defended premise in her overall argument.

Combined with the fact that the majority of these scholars are egalitarians making egalitarian arguments, it begins to be easy to see why some of her more hostile critics incorrectly label her as an egalitarian. She is most assuredly not an egalitarian, but this style of argumentation and sourcing makes it difficult to rationally explain how she is not.

The book, I think, falls prey to trying to accomplish too much. It is fairly expansive in the arguments it is making. (Aimee is proposing a correction to an errant praxis, with theological and practical implications that range from our doctrine of the Trinity to our doctrine of the Church, to our doctrine of the Last Things). While I appreciate the intent of the program, in a book this size what gets left out with such a large target is too often robust argumentation.

Concerning Conclusions

Now, as I disclaimed in my lead up, I am sympathetic to many of the points that Aimee is making. I even agree with many of the big picture conclusions she comes to in the book (See the aforementioned list at the head of this post). However, all arguments are made of premises, and many of the premises she utilizes are conclusions of other arguments.

As a concerned layperson with a seminary education, many of these premises are deeply troubling to me. I do not have space to go into all of them in this post, and hope to approach them more in-depth in a later post or series of posts. That to say, there are a number of statements in the book which I think undercut Aimee’s reliability as a biblical commentator. Many of these are conclusions from egalitarian scholars that, in my assessment, Aimee has uncritically accepted in service to her overall program. As with the good things, I will simply enumerate them here in list form:

• The book of Deuteronomy was first recognized as God’s Word and granted canonical status by Huldah the prophetess (46, Kindle Edition throughout)
• The account of Ruth approaching Boaz on the threshing floor is “packed with suspense and sexual tension. (62)
• Deborah “WAS the word of God” (78, this is actually a quotation from Sam Powell, “In Defense of Barak,” My Only Comfort, December 3, 2014, https://myonlycomfort.com/tag/barak/. , Emphasis is original to Powell and repeated by Aimee)
• That Phoebe bore Paul’s authority in delivering the Epistle to the Romans (146) and held an authoritative position of leadership there (147)
• That Junia was “commissioned by Jesus, giving testimony to his life, his lordship, and his gospel in planting churches.” (224)
• That the various women in Scripture who are said to have churches in their homes are “leaders of house churches” (189), and specifically that Lydia was “the most likely person to have led and cared for the first congregation at Philippi.” (191, a quotation of Marg Mowczko, “Lydia of Thyatira: The Foreigner Who Became the Founding Member of the Philippian Church,” Marg Mowczko (blog), November 30, 2017, https://margmowczko.com/lydia-of-thyatira-philippi/. , who in context argues that Paul provided “a theological and pastoral education” specifically to accomplish this task)

Missing Toppings

Lastly, there are a number of places where I was left feeling like the Pepperoni was forgotten.

This was the result of a number of places where it seems like Aimee was leaving out important components to her overall program. This often times happens on auxiliary points, which is fine. However, the missing pieces here were things central to her thesis.

Again in list form:

• Aimee repeatedly affirms that there are essential differences that exist between men and women. However, there is little in the way of explanation of what those differences are.
• Aimee states (here and elsewhere) that she does not have to act in a feminine way since she is a woman. However, it seems like Aimee would not deny that it is possible for a man to act like a woman, or a woman to act like a man. An explanation of these two facts and how they cohere is necessary.
• Aimee indicates that men and women have unique things to contribute to the Church, but she does not give any real indication of what those things are.

As should be apparent, these are all variations on a theme. But given that this theme is literally the entire theme of her book, the absence of these elements is like calling an empty Pizza Crust a Pizza.