The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood (CBMW) named Boyce college professor Owen Strachan as its new executive director, Jan 7., 2013.
“Owen is an exceptionally gifted theologian and scholar who brings a gospel-gravity to his cultural commentary,” said Dan DeWitt, dean of Boyce College. “His appointment at the CBMW will greatly serve the church in continuing to understand what’s at stake in protecting and nurturing biblical gender roles.”
The council, which consists of men and women within the evangelical community from a spectrum of professional and ministerial backgrounds, considers the Bible’s teaching about “the complementary differences” between the genders as “essential for obedience to Scripture and for the health of the family and the church,” and thus seeks to promote a “complementarian” vision for gender roles as normative for the evangelical church. The Danvers Statement, a doctrinal statement produced at a CBMW meeting in Danvers, Mass., in 1987 and published in its current form in 1988, presents the theological affirmations of the council.
Strachan, who is assistant professor of theology and church history at Southern Seminary’s undergraduate school, succeeds Randy Stinson, dean of the School of Church Ministries at the seminary, as CBMW’s day-to-day leadership role. Strachan will continue his teaching ministry at the college.
“I am thrilled to work for CBMW as executive director,” he said. “Under the instruction and mentorship of complementarian leaders like Bruce Ware, Al Mohler and Mark Dever, God enabled me to see the beauty and wisdom of biblical gender roles. With many thousands of other young evangelicals gripped by the gospel, I love God’s design for men and women. I’m excited to promote this design at CBMW through an ambitious slate of events and initiatives in coming days. CBMW will continue to aid local churches in the formation of God-glorifying families even as we engage the broader cultural discussion of marriage, homosexuality and human flourishing. We are ideally positioned for such engagement, because in a world struggling to find balance on the shifting sand of opinion, we stand on the solid rock of God’s truth.”
Russell D. Moore, chairman of the board for CBMW and dean of the School of Theology at Southern, said in a news release by the organization, “Owen Strachan is a bright and energetic young thinker, brimming with wise ideas about the next stage of CBMW’s mission. I’m excited about the road-map he’s laid out for us and look forward to the future.”
In the same release, Ligon Duncan, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss., and president of the CBMW, also commented on Strachan’s appointment: “At this strategic moment, I am especially enthusiastic and grateful to have the privilege of working alongside Owen Strachan, a dynamic young scholar, in promoting the Bible’s vision for manhood and womanhood in the home and church.”
In October of last year, Strachan participated in a popular radio debate with egalitarian author Rachel Held Evans. And then in November, Strachan delivered a lecture at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., about evangelical cultural engagement.