Baptist Faith & Message 2000 in Bed with the Danvers Statement
The Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is still alive and well. It was the brainchild of Wayne Grudem, professor of theology and biblical studies. It originated from a discussion and eventually a paper he wrote in which he defined the Greek work kephale to mean having “authority over” instead of “source” as egalitarians were claiming.
That sums up the Danvers Statement very well. In Wayne Grudem’s mind and intent – based upon his own words, men having authority over women is the overriding theme. Never mind the fact that Jesus did not give males this authority or acknowledge in any way that men were superior to women. They claim that God decided at Creation that He would share His headship over women with all men.
By giving males authority based on gender and nothing else, the writers and proponents of the Danvers Statement reduce women to an inferior status by assigning specific “roles” based on gender. These assigned roles deny the power of the Holy Spirit.
Man-made roles do not allow for spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are those of natural abilities and also those of supernatural abilities (when God calls us to do something, He will equip us for that job). The Word of God did not categorize these gifts under two column headings: male and female. The Danvers Statement has categorized men and women into roles, but the scriptures do not. The scriptures they give to back up their arguments do not prove that God has given males headship or authority over females.
The Danvers Statement can be found on the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s website, on John Piper’s Desiring God website inside his book (recovering-biblical-manhood-and-womanhood-en.pdf,) on the website of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, where you find “the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood establish the meaning of the Confession of Faith” and elsewhere, and you can purchase it. The president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at the time was Paige Patterson who, along with his wife Dorothy Kelley Patterson, was instrumental in both the Danvers Statement and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is the official statement of the Southern Baptist Convention seminaries, and the majority of its 47,198 churches, and it has the same language and intent as the Danvers Statement.
This means that Baptist churches have adopted the essential dogma of the Danvers Statement without realizing it. That should surprise no one given that the CBMW at one time had its headquarters in a Southern Baptist theological seminary, and is now located in the same city in Kentucky.
Shirley Taylor Books (available on Amazon in print and on Kindle)
The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal: No Buts
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition
From Wife to Widow: What I Know Now
Beyond the Grave: A Christian Dilemma
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