Various factors over the last several years have been compelling me to revisit the issue of gender roles in the church and home. It’s a volatile and often dividing issue, especially in my setting in Southern California, and I don’t think it’s going away. In fact, I can think of few issues that come up as regularly in my relationships and conversations here than the fact that I’m complementarian. I recently read Zondervan’s Two Views on Women in Ministry, ed. by James Beck (2001; revised edition, 2005), which contains egalitarian presentations from Craig Keener and Linda Belleville and complementarian presentations…

In C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra, toward the end of the book, the main character Ransom sees the two Oyarsa (angels) of Mars and Venus, and notices that one is masculine and one is feminine. Lewis then writes: “What Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender. Everyone must sometimes have wondered why in nearly all tongues certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine. What is masculine about a mountain or feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of believing that this is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form of the word. Still less is…