Contact: Madison Trammel, Christianity Today, 630-260-6200 ext 4237, mtrammel@christianitytoday.com

CAROL STREAM, Ill., May 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- In a unique article titled "Wounds of a Friend," authors John Koessler and Sarah Sumner critique the views and attitudes of those who share their respective positions on gender roles in the church. Koessler examines those who agree with his views on limiting women's leadership roles in the church while Sumner critiques those who share her belief that women should serve in any and every leadership role within the church.

Koessler questions the biblical accuracy of the complementarian assumption that a woman's "highest calling" is to be a wife and mother, and suggests that, "Complementarians need to recover a fully biblical view of women—and of handling theological disagreement."

Sumner believes many Egalitarians who believe that men and women should be treated equally in the church mistakenly "appeal more to political liberal thought than to the Scriptures," and suggests they "should rely more on careful exegesis and less on political ideologies."

Christianity Today editor Madison Trammel says, "Fresh and counter-intuitive, this article demonstrates a welcome humility that has too often been lacking on both sides of the ongoing gender-war debate. John Koessler and Sarah Sumner's essays make a true contribution to the discussion by calling both sides to repentance and greater faithfulness to scriptural counsel."

John Koessler is chair of the pastoral studies department at Moody Bible Institute and author of A Stranger in the House of God.

Sarah Sumner is professor of theology and ministry at the Graduate School of Theology at Azusa Pacific University and author of Men and Women in the Church.

This article appears in the June issue of Christianity Today magazine.

Christianity Today, the world's leading religious current issues publication covering the people, events, and ideas that shape the evangelical movement, was founded by Billy Graham in 1956.