A Review of God's Design For Women

In 2002, I read a book called God’s Design For Women: Biblical Womanhood for Today[1], by Sharon James, an English thinker, writer, ministry practitioner and a social policy analyst. It gathered into one book all the good things that I believed about men and women, and which I thought were important for others to investigate. I recommended it, lent it and gave it away countless times.

But it was written 18 years ago - before some of the young women I am currently engaging with, were born! So it was a delight, last year, to see that Dr James had, in her words, “rewritten the book to take account of current cultural trends, including the increasing confusion about gender ’identity’. I have also extended the scope to include what is happening beyond my own country.”

The new book is called God’s Design For Women in an Age of Gender Confusion[2]. There is much of the old material, but it has been supplemented by abundant new data. It, too, is just as good, and I am certainly recommending it!

One of the best additions to this book is Part 1, titled Christianity: Good News for Women? It is a brilliant overview of 2000 years of history which traces the positive impact that Christianity has had on women over that time. This is where Dr James’ background comes to the fore - she has a degree in history from Cambridge University, a degree in theology and a PhD in Government Family Policy. Her history credentials are demonstrated in extensive research of documented evidence, all footnoted.

Because we live in a culture that has been profoundly shaped by Christian ideas and values, we take for granted the vaunted place that women have today. But it has not always been so! From the Roman Empire (when life was considered cheap and expendable: abortion, infanticide and sex slavery) to the reformation (where there was a surge in the building of girls’ schools in Protestant areas, where previously educating girls was considered a waste), and through to the modern missionary era (when Christian women like Ann Judson and Fidelia Fiske championed the health, education and very lives of girls and women in the name of Christ) - the gospel of Jesus has been incredibly good news for women. Without it, the lives of women would be uniformly awful.

Dr James recounts the story of Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi, a converted Hindu couple who tried to save the young daughter of their neighbours, but the parents resisted and the girl eventually died. Vishal wrote,

“Our neighbours did not understand her (Ruth’s) compassionate impulse because three thousand years of Hinduism, twenty-six hundred years of Buddhism, a thousand years of Islam, and a century of secularism had collectively failed to give them a convincing basis for recognising and affirming the unique value of a human being.”[3]

Part 2 of the book is titled Feminism: Liberation or Betrayal? It’s an expanded treatment of what was in the first book, detailing the four waves of feminism, right through to the #MeToo movement. Her chapter on The Bitterness of Betrayal: Seven Ways Feminism Failed Us All is chilling in its detail. Its information/anecdotes that we have all heard in snippets across the years, but to see it all in one place is a heartbreaking reminder of the pernicious effects of sin.

Part 3, Gods Design: Equality and Complementarity and Part 4 God’s Good Design: Family, Community and Church, take us into familiar Biblical material, where James is just as comfortable as she is with the historical-social sections of the book. It is clear, Biblical, complementarian and thorough.

The last chapter, The Life That Never Ends, outlines two ways to live! The way we live now - living by sight, and the way we should live - living by faith. Men and women without the gospel are mesmerised by the things that are seen: relationships, home, appearance, food, holidays. But we are to live by faith, looking to life in the city whose builder and maker is God, and where the Lamb is on the throne. Dr James has rightly drawn our attention to the reason why we care so much about what God tells us in His word.

I heartily recommend this book if you want to have a comprehensive grasp of what the Bible says about gender, along with well-researched historical and social commentary. It is quite dense reading, but well worth the time and effort. The exhaustive endnotes and a study guide complement the content.

[1]God’s Design For Women: Biblical Womanhood for Today, Evangelical Press, 2002

[2] God’s Design For Women in an Age of Gender Confusion, EP Books, 2019

[3] James, 2019, p25

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Lesley Ramsay has been in local church ministry with her husband, Jim, for 47 years. After university she trained as a teacher and then raised four children. Over the past 30 years she has worked as a Bible teacher and evangelist across Australia and overseas. She has written and edited several books and training packages that are sold and used internationally. She now works at Moore College in Sydney, in pastoral care to the students. To relax, she enjoys a good coffee and a good book and hanging out with her grandchildren.