30

THE NEXT STEP: DENIAL OF

ANYTHING UNIQUELY MASCULINE

The egalitarian agenda will not stop simply with the rejection of male

headship in marriage and the establishment of women as pastors and
elders in churches. There is something much deeper at stake. At the foun-
dation of egalitarianism is a dislike and a rejection of anything uniquely
masculine.^1 It is a dislike of manhood itself.
This tendency is seen, for example, in Sarah Sumner’s claim that
even asking “What is biblical manhood?” is asking the wrong question.
It is also seen in her attempts to deny every one of the characteristics that
complementarians say distinguish men from women (such as a primary
responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect within marriage), and in
her limiting “masculinity” and “femininity” only to differences in our
physical bodies.^2
This dislike of anything uniquely masculine is also seen in Rebecca
Groothuis’s suggestion that Adam was a sexually undifferentiated being
when he was first created.^3 But why is it objectionable that God created
Adam as a man? It makes one wonder if this idea doesn’t reflect some

(^1) For further discussion of this trend, see Daniel R. Heimbach, “The Unchangeable Difference:
Eternally Fixed Sexual Identity for an Age of Plastic Sexuality,” in Biblical Foundations for
Manhood and Womanhood, ed. Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2002), 275-289;
and Peter R. Jones, “Sexual Perversion: The Necessary Fruit of Neo-Pagan Spirituality in the
Culture at Large,” in ibid., 257-274.
(^2) See, for example, Sarah Sumner, Men and Women in the Church (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity Press, 2003), 86, 98. For a detailed response, see Wayne Grudem, Evangelical
Feminism and Biblical Truth (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 2004), 484-488, and more generally,
25-101.
(^3) Rebecca Groothuis, Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1997), 124.