Kicking off a discussion on gender in the Bible and how this syncs up the Western Church and broader culture, Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, and Dr. Logan Williams chat with Grace Emmett, a PhD Candidate in New Testament at King’s College, London, who recently submitted a thesis entitled, “Becoming A Man: Unmanly/Manly Self-Presentation in the Pauline Epistles.” In this episode we discuss masculinity as presented in the Pauline epistles and reflected in ancient culture, including questions of whether Paul is subversive or imitative of his surrounding culture. Grace highlights several unique features of Paul, such as maternal metaphors that he applies to himself, but ultimately contends that Paul should not be read as neither a chauvinist nor a proto-feminist. Given the ramifications that this conversation has for the contemporary Western church, we address matters of gender neutrality in biblical translation, concerns of the feminization of the church, and also the usefulness of gendered church events (i.e. Men’s night), gendered Christian resources (i.e. Women’s Study Bibles), and gendered conferences (i.e. Promise Keepers).
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