224 WHERE IS EVANGELICAL FEMINISM TAKING US?
deeper dislike of human sexuality in general, some hostility toward the
very idea of manhood and womanhood.
A similar tendency is also seen in the emphasis, advocated by
Stanley Grenz, that Jesus’ humanity is what was really important for his
incarnation, not his maleness.^4 One wonders again if this does not rep-
resent an underlying desire to reject anything uniquely male. Why
should we object that the Son of God came to earth as a man?^5
Another trend related to this (though not promoted only by egali-
tarians) is found in “gender-neutral” Bibles such as the NRSV, NLT, and
TNIV that remove thousands of examples of the male-oriented words
“man,” “father,” “son,” “brother,” and “he/him/his,” changing them to
“person,” “parent,” “child,” “friend,” and “they,” in places where the
original Hebrew or Greek referred specifically to a male human being
or used a masculine singular pronoun (equivalent to English “he”) to
state a general truth. These versions have “muted the masculinity” of
many passages of Scripture and, in doing so, have contributed to the
feminist goal of denying anything uniquely masculine.^6
Yet another related trend is the removal of masculine language from
familiar hymns. The most recent example (though only one of many) is
the new hymnal approved by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America. It changes
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation!
O my soul praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!to
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the God of Creation!
My heart is longing to offer up sweet adoration!(^4) Stanley Grenz, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry (Downers
Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 207-209.
(^5) For specific responses to the claims of Sumner, Groothuis, and Grenz, see Wayne Grudem,
Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2004), 166-167.
(^6) I have written extensively about this elsewhere: see Vern Poythress and Wayne Grudem, The
TNIV and the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2004);
and Wayne Grudem with Jerry Thacker, Why Is My Choice of a Bible Translation So
Important? (Louisville, Ky.: CBMW, 2005). The second book includes an appendix with a cat-
egorized list of 3,686 “inaccurate translations” in the TNIV, nearly all of them relating to gen-
der language. This list is also available at http://www.genderneutralbibles.com.