The Junia Project

Advocating for Women's Equality in the Church and Home

From Complementarian to Egalitarian: My Story

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I was 32 years old before I heard the word egalitarian.

My universe was very small growing up. I, sort of, realized there was a Christian culture outside of my soft patriarchal, quiverfull one. But that’s how it was always understood. Being out there, on the fringe, barely Christian, if they were Christian at all. Even though I was shy and non-confrontational by nature, I grew up with a strong sense of justice…and the culture around me was unjust. I knew it. I had no theology to back it up, no one to talk to who could explain to me that there was a different way. I didn’t even have words to put to it. But I knew it was wrong.

Paul’s Masculine and Feminine Leadership

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Some Christians believe that being a leader is a man’s role, and that it is unfeminine for women to be in leadership. These Christians dismiss female leaders mentioned in the Bible as rare exceptions and anomalies. Does the Bible teach that leadership is masculine? Or that leadership is unfeminine?

How I Became A Christian Feminist

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It seems that in many Christian communities being a “biblical man” or a “biblical woman” is just as high of a priority, if not more so, than being a biblical person. How did we come to the conclusion that men and women are to imitate Christ in different ways? I’d like to know where people see Jesus mentioning or even emphasizing that a man’s highest calling is to be a leader and a decision-maker, and a woman’s highest calling is to be a nurturer and “advice-giver”. From what I know about the life of Jesus, he called us to love God and love others selflessly. That’s all Jesus seemed to really care about.

Submission: A Personal Story

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Submission

What he had always been told he deserved
What he expected from me, with nothing in return
But it was not mine to give, not in the way he asked for it
Because I had already given that kind to someone else
To the One who had died for me on a cross

Submission and the Creation Account

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Views on submission exist on a continuum, but generally speaking, egalitarians support mutual submission in marriage, and church leadership based on giftedness rather than gender; while complementarians support the unilateral submission of wives, and predominately male church leadership. Both hold the Bible in high regard – the difference comes in interpretation.

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