I have mixed feelings about this book. She is very correct in stating that the evangelical church needs to recover from the false teaching that there are separate categories of "biblical manhood" and "biblical womanhood" when there is really only godly humanhood. The problem is that she is still wedded to the idea of male superiority and female inferiority and that women are forbidden from holding a position of leadership over men in the church. I think that she can't move away from holding a single verse (I Timothy 2:12) as her standard for the female role when Paul spent half of I Corinthians 11 explaining how a woman should prophesy and pray in the church, and then in 15:28 he gives a "hierarchy" of authorities in a church: apostle, prophet, teacher, miracle worker, healer, helper, guider, and speaker in tongues. [The word pastor isn't showing up there because it actually doesn't show up anywhere in the Epistles.] A woman's role is not just "helper" in the hierarchy or even just helper and healer; it's all of the above. Junia was an apostle and all of the first apostles were female because the risen Jesus appeared first to women and told them to tell (telling people the good news is preaching!) his disciples that he had risen. Women are to be prophets as well and there are lots of female prophets in the Bible.

Aimee has been canceled by the cancel culture that is modern evangelicalism just for stating that women should study theology and that there is one biblical standard for all genders. I'm not sure why she won't go the extra millimeter and state the truth that women can preach and teach to men, women, and everyone. I also don't like the word "biblical" because you can find biblical support for all kinds of ungodliness, such as the man after God's own heart being a murderous rapist and terrible, terrible father. When you use the word godly or Christlike to describe someone or something, it won't be describing rape and murder as Christlike. (YES, I HAVE HAD A PASTOR IN A LOFTY PLACE OF AUTHORITY IN A COMPLEMENTARIAN DENOMINATION TELL ME THAT THE RAPE AND MURDER OF A WIFE BY HER HUSBAND IS NOT REALLY A SIN AND IS A *BIBLICAL* USE OF AUTHORITY AND THAT HUMAN RIGHTS SUCH AS THE RIGHT TO LIFE DO NOT EXTEND TO FEMALES AFTER BIRTH! And, no, the other pastors, elders, and male members of this denomination won't confront him because they view him as having God-given authority over his parishioners and they can't interfere with the authority they view as given by God [it's actually bestowed by a fallible ordination committee, but they have a papist view of ecclesiology while claiming the opposite] ...... unless the pastor is calling himself a celibate gay Christian and then and only then do they have authority to run him completely out of the church ...... but if the pastor engages in criminal sexual activity or is a heretic over any other matter, they don't have authority to discipline him in any way because of their completely immoral and ungodly doctrines of male sexuality [men MUST not be celibate and MUST get married to a woman and MUST have lots of sex with her because sex is a need greater than breathing for men and that need is greater than any woman or child's supposed need for bodily autonomy and having sex with a wife will prevent men from having sex with another person and we know this because we blame our wives for our sexual sins and doncha know that Jesus had lots of sex because men need sex and are incapable of sexual self-control ... end sarcasm] and the "God-given" respect [which they define as authority] due those who own male genitals once they reach adulthood.)

Jesus said that we can judge a tree by its fruits. Does the tree of male supremacy and complementarianism and patriarchy have good fruits? NO, definitely not! Complementarian churches and denominations are full of perpetrators of pedophilia, domestic violence, rape, incest, and spiritual abuse and the members and leaders of these churches REFUSE to expel the perpetrators. They also REFUSE to quit associating with churches and pastors and parachurch organizations that enable this behavior. They yell loudly that homosexuality is sinful but they welcome men who rape and sexually abuse boys (and girls) and they protect these pedophiles aggressively and they are *proud* of this because it proves how loyal they are to the patriarchy! (I Corinthians 5!) The ones who say that they are opposed to the sins of pedophilia, domestic violence, rape, incest, and spiritual abuse sit on their buttocks placidly and do absolutely nothing because their beliefs on male superiority and authority are far more important than their beliefs on sexuality and the right to life. Are egalitarian churches full of the same sins? NO! The fruits are yelling loud and clear which doctrine is true.

Stepping off the soapbox, this is a decent stepping stone between ungodly complementarianism [male supremacy] and Christlike egalitarianism, but you need to move beyond her stated beliefs into the glorious light of God's equal love and equal gifting of women and children, to a place where you actually believe in the priesthood of ALL believers regardless of gender, age, race, economic class, ethnicity, and other artificial dividing lines. ( )

Rating: 2 stars of 5

I wanted to like Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood but I ended up having two main issues with it.

First: it reads like a book report about a bunch of other authors' books and repeats a lot of the same information found in other books in this genre. Second: whilst other authors’ ideas presented therein are well laid out and plausible, Aimee’s own thoughts and conclusions are sometimes insupportable. There are instances when she uses a certain text to try to support a claim she makes that the text doesn’t actually seem to support. The ideas presented that have the most merit are either cited or quoted as being someone else's work.

I will say that this book is well cited, which I very much appreciated. However, there is so much in this book that is not the author's work that I found myself feeling like I should just read the cited authors' works instead; their ideas made much more sense and seemed much more valid than Aimee's did.

Somewhere around the middle of the book, I stopped on a random page and counted the sentences so I could have a sample to share of just how prevalent other authors' work is in this book. On said sample page, I counted 11 sentences. Six of them were cited (i.e. not the authors' original ideas), six of them were direct quotes (again, not the author's original ideas; there was a little bit of overlap between cited and directly quoted sentences), and two of them were neither cited nor direct quotes. So two of the 11 sentences were the author's own words, and they did not add much to the conversation. This was not unusual throughout the rest of the book. It was a pretty typical sample page.

Unfortunately, I would not recommend this book as one of the better ones on this topic. So many people love it that I may come back and give it another chance in the future. However, right now, I recommend reading The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr, and perhaps Women Rising by Meghan Tschanz, instead.

If you want to skip this one and go straight to her source material, Bauckham's Gospel Women and James' The Gospel of Ruth and Finding God in the Margins were some of the oft-cited works that seemed worth reading.

( )

This is a wonderful take on the current climate of Complimentarianism and a pathway moving forward. Aimee is clear in the vision she longs to see in the church in the engagement of women in a way that still upholds the bible's full teaching on the subject.

The current resistance against some of the ideas in the book comes from churches who may argue that the problems Aimee presents are only in the fringes of abusive churches, and not present in the church they call home. But that perhaps proves Aimee's point; that the culture of modern day complimentarian churches who profess to uplift and honor women in the church have not carefully reexamined how they got there and afraid to challenge the past narratives that lead to its current condition. Influences of organizations like CBMW, Celebrity Pastors, and the theological errors ESS are all challenged; not because Aimee completely disagrees with the biblical argument, but rather of the way antiquated cultural ideas seep their way into the pages that are extra-biblical. We need more "gynocentric interruptions" to remind us of how we as the church have failed in this area, and Aimee does a great job in presenting those both in scripture and in our current day.

The only minor quibble I have in Aimee's presentation is some of the speculative sections of scripture where I think a mountain is made out of molehills, but this section is brief and does not dominate her argument. The book is meant to challenge the "wallpaper" of our churches and what the women and men in church see when they enter the doors of the church, and it accomplishes this goal in a thoughtful, winsome, and vision setting path. I think this book is better read in groups, and it can help gain perspective from what we all see in our own churches. Highly recommend. ( )

This book claims to be a biblical and Reformed rejection of the teachings commonly known as "biblical manhood and womanhood," as spearheaded by the organization Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhoow (CBMW). The first and major problem is the pervasive misrepresentation and distortion of that position. Regardless of the merits of Byrd's positive arguments for her position, how can anyone take her seriously when she routinely misrepresents her opponents and the teachings of her opponents? That itself is reason enough to reject whatever she has to say.

Concerning her supposed position, she does have some point but then she negates anything good she has to say by falsely assigning blame. Why is CMBW held responsible for the marketing of superficial and shallow material for "women's bible studies"? Did CBMW teach that women are to be treated like spiritual babies? If not, why is CBMW blamed for something they did not teach or advocate?

Because of the misrepresentations and false attribution of blame, this book is not to be trusted by anyone. It promotes libel against other Christians and Byrd should repent of her wickedness in the false accusations she has made. ( )