Doing a 180

Sitting on my nightstand now is a fascinating book titled, How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership: Compelling Stories from Prominent Evangelicals. It's a compilation by Alan F. Johnson, whose author page at HarperCollins identifies him as earning a PhD from my alma mater.

Johnson is Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Christian Ethics and Emeritus Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE) at Wheaton College. He also authored commentaries on Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation, and he co-authored (with Robert Webber) What Christians Believe. Johnson and his wife have four daughters and nineteen grandchildren.

About the time I received a review copy, one of my colleagues sent me a message saying I absolutely had to read the chapter by Gilbert Bilezikian, who writes about the Armenian genocide from the early 1900's. Then another colleague sent me a message saying virtually the same thing. So I turned straight to that chapter. And they were right. The chapter took my breath away.

No matter where you stand on the issue of women in leadership, you will benefit by interacting with views from both sides. This book provides fascinating, and sometimes heartbreaking narratives by some high-profile folks who have done something difficult for public figures to do: really and truly change their minds.