A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

A Quiet Simple Life

You are here: Home / Archives for Biblical Truth & Discernment / Examining Biblical Theology

Examining Biblical Theology

Is There a Place for Conservative Biblical Egalitarians?


October 2025 Update: I wrote this when I had a website named A Woman’s Freedom in Christ. I have folded all of that content into the website you are on now.

Is there a place for conservative biblical egalitarians right now? At one point a few months ago I decided the answer was a resounding no. I took down this website and redirected all of the links to one of my other websites.

Every time I tried to find a Christian egalitarian tribe online and joined various groups, I felt compelled to leave. Parts of my faith and beliefs I valued were mocked or derided, even in a Christian setting. It was clear that a relatively conservative Christian who believes the Bible would not fit in very well. I found the vitriol and anger too much to engage with and read all the time. I left and focused on other parts of my life rather than this little ministry.

There were two things that made me put this site back up.

Reasons for This Quiet Conservative Biblical Egalitarian Place

The first is that someone specifically wrote and said he was using the site for research and was disappointed that it disappeared.

The second was when a number of other conservative egalitarian Christians said it was unfortunate I took it down since there are relatively few places online for conservative Christian laymen and laywomen to go to read if they are researching this topic. Many (most?) of the Christian egalitarian groups and websites are heavily progressive with a strong focus on social justice. That is their choice, but many conservative Christians are not going to end up in a group like that. Like me, their search for truth is not driven by the culture and the trends du jour. It is driven by a desire to understand what God has to say on these topics. I started this journey twenty years ago and it has nothing to do with cultural trends. It has everything to do with following Christ.

An Egalitarian Place for Christians to Read and Ponder

My husband and I put the website back up a few weeks ago. We’ve been updating things and getting it ready for me to write again. I’ve noticed as I watch the incoming traffic that there are many people who come and stay a long time. They read many posts, they take many outgoing links, etc. They never say anything or leave a comment. But they are reading. Like me many years ago, I am guessing they are searching for answers to the questions they have about women in the body of Christ.

Those are especially the people this site exists for. For the women and men who are earnestly searching for the truth and need a quiet place to do so. For the women and men who want to honor Christ with the way they live their life, regardless of what others say or think. For the women and men who take the Bible seriously and have an intense desire to know the truth and then live it out in practical ways.

I don’t have all the answers to all the questions. (When it comes to this topic, no one does no matter how much they might insist that they do because it is just all so obvious.) But I hope I can point people to thought-provoking reading, raise good questions, and help people sort out their beliefs on these topics.

So the answer to the question is… Yes! There is a place online for conservative Biblical egalitarians and those who are searching for answers. I hope the Lord will give you wisdom and discernment as you search and read. We may end up drawing different conclusions, but we’re still brothers and sisters in Christ and I’m glad you are here!

Category: 11 Comments

Breaking Down the Incredibly Complex Egalitarian Christian Marriage


For a long time I’ve wanted to tackle one of the principal problems of egalitarian Christian marriages and that is the fact that someone has to be in charge or there will be chaos. You know. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. SOMEONE must be in charge at all times or the marriage will fail.

Egalitarian Christian Marriage

So for the benefit of all mankind I’m going to break down this horrifically complex thing we call egalitarian Christian marriage. I feel morally obligated to answer this question as I’ve dealt with it on a daily basis for almost twenty years. Truly the future of the church and civilization hangs in the balance. (I’ve read that so many times online that I know it has to be true.) So I’m going to pull apart this incredibly complicated relationship step by step in the hope that at least a few brave souls will do the hard work of understanding the terrible difficulty my husband and I labor under every day as we shoulder the burden of living in an egalitarian Christian marriage.

Here it is.

Are you sure you are ready?

Are you sitting down?

There’s no going back. You cannot unsee this once you read it.

Are you sure?

Okay. Here it is.

I treat him with love, respect, empathy, and courtesy.

He treats me with love, respect, empathy, and courtesy.

There you go.

Egalitarian Marriage Roles

People, it is not complicated. In fact, so many times I’ve wanted to sit down and write about our egalitarian Christian marriage and I couldn’t come up with anything to say because it’s just so simple and obvious.

Yet I somehow felt compelled that I had to come up with some intricate detailed description about how we do it.

But it’s not complicated and I can’t even come up with a complicated explanation to somehow convince you it is “more godly” or “more biblical” because, well, you know. Everything from the Bible has to be complicated with charts and diagrams and umbrellas and references to the rapture.

This is it.

Christ is the head of our home.

I submit to Christ.

He submits to Christ.

We submit to Christ together.

We treat each other like adults.

We trust each other.

We strive to be trustworthy.

We give each other the benefit of the doubt.

We ask for forgiveness.

We forgive each other.

The person with the best skills, most insights and/or most willingness takes the lead in each area as needed.

When we disagree about something we talk about it and pray about it until we come to a decision we are both completely on board with.

That’s it.

What Does an Egalitarian Christian Marriage Look Like?

In twenty years together we’ve never had a decision where someone had to pull the trump card. Ever. Neither one of us has ever said, “I don’t care what you want. I’m doing this.” We simply don’t treat each other that way.

We’re best friends. Why would we want to treat our best friend with disrespect?

What makes any marriage complicated is selfishness. If a marriage is made up of people who want their own way, then you can call it whatever you want and it’s going to be unhealthy.

In an egalitarian marriage, though, the selfishness will be much more obvious because you’ve made a commitment to mutually submit to one another. There is no hiding behind roles. No way to subtly manipulate the other into thinking the “biblical” choice means doing this or acting like this.

So there you go. The horrific reality that David and I face every day in an egalitarian marriage. Loving each other. Respecting each other. Trying to be empathetic. Treating each other with courtesy as any emotionally healthy adults would do.

Now, you can’t unsee this. What will you do with it?

Category: 11 Comments

Why Complementarian Leaders Ignore Their Insightful Sisters in Christ – Soap Bubbles Submission


It was fascinating to watch the complementarian leaders of Together for the Gospel insist that C.J. Maheney speak at their conference last week despite the concerns expressed by many that he is not fit for teaching or leadership given the controversies surrounding his leadership in Sovereign Grace Ministries.

Coupled with this, there are more complementarians voicing their concern with the increasingly bizarre ideas coming out of the comp/patriarchy camp. I personally believe the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) officially jumped the shark when they published Soap Bubbles Submission last month. (And then deleted it. You can read it via The Wayback Machine.) I truly cannot even do it justice by trying to explain it here. You’ll have to click over and read how CBMW now believes men micromanaging the way their wives wash and rinse dishes is part of Gospel complimentarity. (The Mortification of Spin did a bit on the soap bubbles that was pretty funny.)

If the soap bubbles weren’t enough, CBMW is now promoting sanctified testosterone. I am totally not joking. In 5 Key Ways to Cultivating Biblical Manhood in Your Church, Jason Allen says that “the church needs to recover biblical manhood, Christian masculinity—what we might think of as sanctified testosterone.”

Seriously?

9 Marks of Healthy Biblical Complementarianism?

As I’ve done with other topics that capture my attention, I’m listing a group of posts here for the benefit of not only my readers but also myself in the future since these topics seem to come up time and again. This bit got started when Kevin DeYoung posted about the nine marks of healthy biblical complementarianism. It snowballed into a number of other posts that I’ve listed below. If you haven’t read them, go ahead. Then I’d like to offer a few observations of my own.

Why Are the Complementarian Leaders Ignoring Us?

For the women who run in these circles and are confused as to why the leadership is not responding to their request for meaningful public dialog, I’m going to offer a few observations. Please understand there is no snark, no anger and no ridicule intended in my tone. These are matter of fact observations as I’ve interacted with this corner of Christianity for many years.

The complementarian male leaders (excuse the redundancy) do not respond to their thoughtful sisters in Christ for the following reasons.

The Slippery Slope

The overarching reason these men will not respond to sisters in Christ asking serious theological questions online is that answering their questions is the start of a slippery slope these men do not wish to start down. It all boils down to that.

These men have a grid and they will not depart from it.

The seminal moment in my understanding of the leadership in TGC, T4G and the like was when it became crystal clear to me that these men would rather have men die without hearing the Gospel than hear it preached by a woman. My interaction with Denny Burk is recorded in Should Women Proclaim the Gospel to Men? and it has forever changed the way I think about the men carrying the complementarian flag. Denny Burk would not say that the woman in the boat should proclaim the Gospel to men about to die because he knows if he does it will open up a series of questions he does not want to answer.

Think about that.

In their paradigm, it’s apparently better to die apart from Christ than hear the Gospel from a woman.

These men have a grid and they will not depart from it.

They Will Not Publicly Learn from a Woman

Responding to women who ask detailed and thoughtful theological question would also require that they appear to learn to from a woman. This is also a no-go. Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think any of the men prominently associated with this movement have EVER specifically responded to significant theological questions put forth by a woman on a blog or website. If they have and I am wrong, I’d love to see the links so please leave the exchange in the comments. To admit that a woman pointed out a flaw in their theology will again lead down a slippery slope they want to avoid at all costs.

These men have a grid and they will not depart from it.

They Don’t Want Their Followers To Dig Deep in Scripture

I am thrilled to see complementarian woman calling out the bad theology coming from some of these groups. These women are digging into the Scriptures and studying. However, you don’t see any deep study of the complementarian versus egalitarian view on any of the prominent complementarian websites written by men. Why? It would require that the debate of complementarian versus egalitarian theology dig much deeper into the Scriptures in a public way and they do not want to “confuse” their faithful followers.

They do not want the people who read their websites, buy their books, and attend their conferences to read quality arguments from the other side. They would rather dismiss them and invoke the homosexuality card at the end of their post to cause people to cling to complementarianism in fear. Frankly, it’s insulting and degrading to their followers. If the complementarian view is so weak that it can’t stand up to scrutiny and detailed study of the Bible, what are these leaders telling their followers? That they are too stupid or easily deceived? Or that they cannot be led by the Holy Spirit and come to their own conclusions about these matters?

These men have a grid and they will not depart from it.

Women Cannot Have a Prominent Voice

They do not want to give women a prominent voice. All of these organizations are fronted by men. Men speak. Men lead. Men dictate the direction. Sure they have softened a bit in the last year or two. They will occasionally let a woman put her name on a post for TGC. They will have a special conference for women. But women are never ever going to have a prominent voice in those organizations. Again, if they acknowledge the gifts and abilities of women it is going to open a can of worms they don’t want to deal with.

These men have a grid and they will not depart from it.

This is the real end game of complementarianism.

It’s the only logical conclusion. It really can’t end any other way.

These men have a grid and they will not depart from it.

Women asking theological questions does not fit the grid. Complementarian women who try to move forward in this paradigm are going to find themselves increasingly frustrated and marginalized. It is obvious that groups like CBMW, TGC, T4G and so on are doubling down on their grid. (See what Kevin DeYoung said in PCA General Assembly – PCA Churches Do Not Want People With Doubts.) Because they are driven to respond to the culture more than what the Bible actually teaches, I believe women are going to find themselves marginalized more and more by these leaders and those who follow their lead in the local church.

The cognitive dissonance experienced by intelligent, godly complementarian women is real. It’s real because they know that they cannot bring the truth of intelligent women being used by God in line with complementarianism.

I know the dissonance. I lived with it for a number of years until I realized the true freedom Christ gives to women in the Body of Christ.

I pray my sisters in Christ will find freedom from the grid.

Category: 8 Comments

I am a Conservative Biblical Egalitarian


Update October 2025 – I published this post in October 2016. It has been nine years and my views on this topic have continued to grow and deepen. My views on other things in this post have also changed. If I were to write this post now, I would write parts of it differently. But for the sake of sharing my journey, I am republishing it as I wrote it. I may write an update to this as a new post. I still loathe the term egalitarian. I don’t refer to myself that way. Probably the closest I can come to is the label in the title of the book Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy. But until we have a better way to discuss this topic, we’re stuck with patriarchy, complementarian, and egalitarian.

You can’t possibly be conservative, biblical, and an egalitarian.

That’s what I’ve been told by people on both sides of the complementarian versus egalitarian debate.

Some people say it nicely.

Some people not so nicely.

Some people tell me I’m not saved.

My answer?

Of course I can be conservative, biblical, and egalitarian.

They are not mutually exclusive.

Conservative

As a conservative, I have a preference for traditional things. I’d rather worship in a beautiful building with stained glass windows, a choir, and a pipe organ (or a stringed quartet!). When I sit down to play the piano in the evening, I turn to my favorite hymns and play one after another. I like dresses and skirts more than pants. I dislike profanity. I am pro-life. I fall moderately right of center on many issues and in other areas toward the far end of conservative libertarianism. I appreciate it when any man holds a door open for me. I find the British royal family fascinating, loved Downton Abbey, and like reading books written by people who lived long ago. I believe there can be wisdom in conserving what is best from the past.

Biblical

As someone who is biblical, I value the Bible, the Word of God. I believe it is authoritative in the life of a Christian. I desire to have it instruct me in how to live my life. I enjoy studying it deeply. I believe it is God’s word to us. I believe it is understandable. I believe the Bible is amazing. I believe I am called to follow Jesus as best I can based on the revealed Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit. My commitment to the essentials of the faith as expressed in something like the Nicene Creed has not changed.

Egalitarian

As an egalitarian, I believe God bestows spiritual gifts on men and women as He chooses. He can raise up a man or a woman to do whatever He calls them to do as is so clearly demonstrated time and again in both the Old Testament and New Testament. Men and women should serve based on their spiritual gifts, not their sex. Men and women are of equal standing and equal value in the church. I believe if someone is willing to study the arguments for egalitarianism from the Scriptures, they are compelling.

I do not believe the egalitarian view is about demanding rights for women but instead is about freeing both women and men to serve God in the ways He has chosen to clearly gift them.

Biblical Support for Egalitarianism and Not So Much This

At the same time, there are things I don’t identify with. Since I am a conservative biblical egalitarian, you aren’t going to find posts on my website that use words like the following:

  • power structures
  • privilege
  • gender
  • feminism
  • oppression
  • social constructs
  • progressive
  • social justice
  • disempower

I realize some of my Christian egalitarian brothers and sisters write from that perspective and it matters very much to them. I’m glad they are reaching out to people who think about this topic from that perspective.

But that’s not where I am. I don’t find gender studies or psychology or any of that to matter very much to me when it comes to understanding this issue in the church. When I began to question the complementarian view, I only cared about understanding the Bible and following the Holy Spirit. What is happening or not happening in the culture doesn’t shape my views about God’s intention for the Body of Christ. I only care about following Christ and seeing the Body of Christ around the world free to serve. Will that impact how I interact with the culture in which I live? Yes, but it doesn’t (and can’t) drive my understanding.

Ending Up Egalitarian

On the issue of women in the church, I simply believe after extensive study and prayer over a number of years that the complementarian view is fraught with significant problems. This entire website is a document of that journey from the first questions to now.

I think the egalitarian view makes much more sense in the totality of Scripture. I don’t find the “troubling verses” very troubling any longer.

In this case, I think the conservative-leaning side of the Body of Christ is, at best, missing out and, at worst, is in disobedience to the Lord.

I still have much in common with my conservative brothers and sisters in Christ, but I believe the egalitarians are in all likelihood right on this question.

Why am I saying this?

A few reasons.

Why Discuss Conservative Biblical Egalitarianism?

One, there are many Christians who believe that conservative/biblical and egalitarian are mutually exclusive. They do not believe it is possible for someone to believe in the authority of Scripture and end up in the egalitarian camp by way of biblical conviction. They have been told so many times that the only way to follow God as a Christian and have a happy marriage is to be complementarian that they have no idea that is possible to believe anything else.

Well, it is.

Two, I know there are so many closet conservative Biblical egalitarians out there. Christians who live happily as egalitarians and secretly think that the egalitarian view is correct, but won’t say so publicly for fear of what it will cost them in terms of friends, family, professional standing, and church position. I know they are out there. They’ve written and told me so. There aren’t enough people who are willing to say that they love Jesus, love the Bible, think conservatively, and believe egalitarianism is right for the body of Christ.

I think that needs to end.

Third, I’m saying it because I want my daughter to grow up in a time when the Church experiences the fullness of the body. When men and women serve each other together. When people are put in positions of leadership and teaching because they are clearly gifted by the Holy Spirit. I want her to have the opportunity to live in a time when the Body of Christ more fully reflects what God intended.

So I will say that this is me. Will you say it, too?

Arguments for Egalitarianism

If you think that I’m just one person who is off her rocker and there is no one else like me, I encourage you to consider some of the resources below that feature churches that hold to the authority of the Scripture. They are also people who believe in the authority of the Scriptures and women functioning freely. Then you can spend some time going through my site. There is much information here for someone who truly wants to begin exploring the idea of being a conservative biblical egalitarian.

Update 2025 – Some are no longer available online so I removed them. 

Lastly (or, actually, maybe read these first), I would point you to Wade Burleson’s blog. He has many excellent posts about the important cultural background aspects of the so-called difficult passages. I would start with:

Are the Sisters Free to Function? by Jon Zens

Do You Define “Church” the Way the Bible Defines It?

All The Ekklesia Have Voices

The Only Time the Bible Uses the Word “Authority” (exousia) in the Context of Marriage Should Lead Couples to Cherish Unity

Artemis and the End of Us: Evangelical Errors Regarding Women

May the Lord Jesus bless you on your journey.

Category: 10 Comments