MERE RECOVERING THE GENDER, INTERSECTIONALITY, COMPLEMENTARIANISM COMMUNION OF PERSONS AND CRITICAL THEORY Denny Burk Katie McCoy Pat Sawyer + Neil Shenvi A Journal for Biblical Anthropology VOLUME ONE Fall 2019 ISSUE TWO EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DENNY R. BURK, Professor of Biblical Studies, Boyce College EXECUTIVE EDITOR ANDREW T. WALKER, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary MANAGING EDITOR COLIN J. SMOTHERS, Executive Director, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MATTHEW DAMICO BOOK REVIEW EDITOR JONATHAN SWAN EDITORIAL BOARD DANIEL AKIN, President and the Ed Young, Sr. Chair of Preaching, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary JASON DUESING, Provost and Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary PURSUE J. LIGON DUNCAN, III, Chancellor/ Fully PURSUE CEO and the John E. Richards Professor Fully MINISTRY of Systematic and Historical Theology, Prepared. MINISTRY Reformed Theological Seminary Prepared. AT CEDARVILLE WAYNE GRUDEM, Distinguished Research AT CEDARVILLE Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies, For His UNIVERSITY. Phoenix Seminary For His UNIVERSITY. Purpose. RESIDENTIAL M.DIV. OR MIGUEL NUÑEZ, President, Ministerios Purpose. ONLINERESIDENTIAL M.MIN. M.DIV. OR Integridad & Sabiduría CONSERVATIVEONLINE M.MIN. THEOLOGY JEFF PURSWELL, Dean, Sovereign Grace Pastors College ACCELERATEDCONSERVATIVE THEOLOGY K. ERIK THOENNES, Chair of Biblical COMPLETIONACCELERATED OPTIONS and Theological Studies and Professor of COMPLETION OPTIONS Theology, Talbot School of Theology CEDARVILLE.EDU/ THOMAS WHITE, President and Professor CBMWCEDARVILLE.EDU/ of Systematic Theology, Cedarville University CBMW ISSUE TWO 1 4 FALL 2019 ISSUE INTRODUCTION 103 A NEW WAY TO UNDERSTAND Andrew T. Walker MEN AND WOMEN IN CHRIST? Steven Wedgeworth 6 THIS ANTHROPOLOGICAL MOMENT 116 PRIMAL SCREAMS: HOW THE Michael Haykin SEXUAL REVOLUTION CREATED Contents IDENTITY POLITICS 9 CREATION AND DISCRIMINATION Reviewed by Scott Corbin Colin J. Smothers Issue 2 121 (A)TYPICAL WOMAN 16 TRANSGENDERISM AND THE Reviewed by Adrien Segal SUPREME COURT Jon Whitehead 125 LIBERTY IN THE THINGS OF GOD Reviewed by David Closson 20 ALIKE, BUT DIFFERENT Jenn Kinter 28 MERE COMPLEMENTARIANISM Denny Burk 44 RECOVERING THE COMMUNION OF PERSONS Katie McCoy 60 DISCIPLESHIP AND THE TRANSGENDER CONVERT Robert S. Smith 75 GENDER, INTERSECTIONALITY, AND CRITICAL THEORY Pat Sawyer + Neil Shenvi 82 NATURAL LAW AND PROTECTING THE INNOCENT Andrew T. Walker + Josh Wester 88 STATEMENT AGAINST FEMALE CONSCRIPTION The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 92 ON THE STATE OF COMPLEMENTARIANISM R. Albert Mohler, Jr. 2 ISSUE TWO 3 ANDREW T. WALKER Fall 2019 Issue Introduction Eikon is now into its second issue, and president Denny Burk has written Australian scholar Robert Smith has written broad purchase. In our reviews section, I continue to be grateful for what the what I hope will be an important a very thorough essay on what discipleship Steven Wedgeworth has written an in- beginnings of this journal have offered. signpost for complementarianism’s means for a transgender convert. Josh depth review of a noteworthy book that is Our first issue was greeted with success. future. With much uncertainty as to Wester and I engage an important debate seeking to challenge complementarianism In particular, Joe Rigney’s essay on the what defines complementarianism among religious conservatives — how to by appealing to complementarianism’s relationship between general revelation qua complementarianism, Burk has respond to the preponderance of “Drag foundations. On a parting note, in this and special revelation put down an sought to clarify what the school of Queen Story Hour” and what, if anything, issue is CBMW’s formal statement against important marker for what Eikon is complementarianism consists of, what the government can do to offset this the United States military’s consideration seeking to establish, namely, an evangelical it should debate “in house,” and what immoral conduct aimed at children. on whether to conscript women into account of anthropology that is firmly should be considered outside the pale of CBMW Executive Director Colin military service. rooted in both general revelation and complementarianism. Smothers has written an essay on what special revelation and a proper account of “discrimination” means in the context of sex how the two relate to one another. We are pleased to announce that difference, in terms of how we judge and professor Michael Haykin of Southern assess the designed differences between The Fall 2019 issue of Eikon is our most Seminary will offer a column for each males and females. Smothers’s essay helps substantive to date. That may seem subsequent issue of Eikon titled “Ancient us understand that sex difference is not insignificant considering this is only our Paths.” His introductory column appears discriminatory, in the contemporary sense second issue, but nonetheless, the question in this issue. of that term, but that natural difference is of a journal’s success is often determined tied to what it means to be male or female. by the volume and quality of its content, Southwestern Seminary professor and this second issue surpasses the first in Katie McCoy has put together an Lastly, we have an important interview with terms of volume. incredibly thoughtful essay on how Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., one of today’s most complementarianism should be important complementarian voices. Please At a time where complementarian understood more through Hebraic pay particular attention to this interview, Andrew T. Walker is the Executive Editor of thought is deeply misunderstood and understandings, and less through as Dr. Mohler’s comments on the state Eikon and Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Apologetics at The Southern often purposefully maligned, CBMW Aristotelian lenses. and future of complementarianism need Baptist Theological Seminary 4 ISSUE TWO 5 MICHAEL HAYKIN The Ancient Paths This Anthropological Moment The early Christian theologian Gregory of It would be easy to think that the church was originally an androgynous person. defend the propriety of the married estate Nyssa (c.335–c.395) once complained that has never been in such a place before The goal of salvation was overcoming for pastors. Divorce also became a major it was nigh on impossible to buy bread at — but such a thought would be wrong. this sexual differentiation. The response issue of the era, and Calvin in particular the market or even go to the baths without The earliest heresy which consumed of Christian authors like Irenaeus was crafted an enormous amount of church finding oneself asked whether or not God much of the church’s energy, Gnosticism, to affirm the goodness of the original legislation about divorce and remarriage. the Son is equal to or less than God the was first and foremost concerned with creation of male and female and thus the Father. His was a day when Trinitarian anthropological matters. Gnostics, who goodness of sexual differentiation, and by In other words, our anthropological questions dominated the public discourse first appeared in the era of the New implication, the goodness of sexuality. moment is not without precedent. And of the churches. Twelve hundred years Testament (see 1 John 4 and 2 John, for wise words from the Christian past about later, during the Reformation, the major example), denied the goodness of the Again, during the time of the Reformation, what it means to be truly human are thus questions had to do with how one is saved material realm, leading them to deny the the Reformers had major concerns about of ongoing value and help. Such are the and the marks of the true church. In fact, goodness of the human body and thus the what had been central to the medieval “ancient paths” (Jer. 6:16) that this column in certain contexts, refusal to confess the possibility of the incarnation and bodily ideal of spirituality, namely, celibacy. The will explore in coming issues. doctrine of transubstantiation was enough resurrection. Their affirmation of salvation Reformers asserted that the married state to get one killed. But these questions by knowledge was intimately tied to a could be as holy a context in which to of Trinitarian theology or soteriology fascination with answering the question of live out Christian discipleship as celibacy, or the doctrine of the church are not personal identity — all of which sounds so and thus marriage was a hot issue during the most burning issues of our day. That current. Some of the authoritative writings the sixteenth century. The Reformers’ place is reserved for anthropological of the Gnostics, such as the so-called marriages — such as those of Martin Michael A.G. Haykin is chair and concerns: what it means to be human and Gospel of Philip, argued that the fall of Bucer, Martin Luther, and John Calvin — professor of church history at The questions of human sexuality. Ours is an humanity took place when there was the were regarded as scandalous by the Roman Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Director of the Andrew Fuller anthropological moment. separation of male and female from what Church and forced the Reformers to Center for Baptist Studies at Southern. 6 ISSUE TWO 7 COLIN J. SMOTHERS Creation and Discrimination: Why the Male-Female Distinction Makes a Difference World-renowned historian William Manchester could write in 1993 that “the erasure of the distinctions between the sexes is not only the most striking issue of our time, it may be the most profound the race has ever confronted.”1 Twenty-six years later, it is difficult to overstate just how prescient Manchester’s statement was. The attempt to erase the distinctions between the sexes has not only accelerated apace in the ensuing decades, it has evolved and eked into nearly every realm of contemporary life. How should we think about the inevitable confrontation before us? The task at hand is proper discrimination, the drawing of ¹William Manchester, “A World Lit Only distinctions, and this according to God’s By Change,” U.S.