Reviewed by: The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership by Dorothy A. Lee Florence Morgan Gillman dorothy a. lee, The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021). Pp. 226. $24.99. In introducing her text, Dorothy A. Lee, Australian NT scholar and Anglican priest, comments that it may seem anachronistic to write a book on women in the NT since "surely the work has been done, the arguments canvassed, and the battle in good part won" (p. 1). Although her own church does ordain women, she notes that various sources have more recently promoted arguments against egalitarianism in churches and homes for a new generation of Christians. She views such arguments as influencing particularly young men aspiring to leadership positions "while firmly excluding their female peers and calling for obedience from their wives" (p. 1). Lee states that the purpose of her study is "to revisit the arguments against women's full participation in ministry and leadership within the church . . . from a biblical and theological point of view" (p. 10). This volume is thus generic in the sense that she does not focus on any single non-female-ordaining church but generally has in mind what she terms the more "catholic" opposition to women's ordination as, for example, in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions as well as in some forms of Anglicanism. Her work therefore does not give much attention to the polity of the various traditions and their specific debates and statements about female ordination. Lee sees the real issues underlying the question of ordination as theological, especially christological regarding the nature of God and the significance of a Christian's identity in relation to Christ. She argues that, from a NT perspective, baptized Christian women—like baptized Christian men—share the same fundamental vocation, that is, to be disciples of Jesus Christ. It follows, therefore, that "the particular form their ministry takes should not be restricted because they are women, just as it is not so restricted for men" (p. 11). L. of course recognizes that the lack of NT evidence regarding formal structures of leadership makes any discussion of ordination in the earliest days of Christianity anachronistic. Hence the extension of her study beyond the NT into the second and third centuries. Lee's research is presented in two parts. The first covers women's ministry in the NT, treating the texts in relatively canonical rather than chronological order. She notes, however, that female discipleship and leadership are not a main concern of the NT writings. Rather, she sees the greatest focus of these writings as "the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the creation of the community of faith around that central proclamation" (p. 189). L. challenges the misogyny she detects in much current church teaching that claims to be complementarian. She critiques allegedly egalitarian reasoning that sees women and men as somehow distinctive in their roles as disciples, with access to power being reserved to men, complemented by women's supposedly "unique perspectives." The second and briefer part of L.'s book treats women's ministry in the historical tradition beyond the Scriptures. Here she discusses early texts depicting leadership by Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and others and also surveys art and artifacts portraying women with symbolism or clothing suggesting leadership or liturgical roles. She likewise comments on early church "mothers" whose unordained ministries in their own spheres were extensive (e.g., Perpetua, Egeria, Eudocia). Lee concludes with a chapter setting forth a theological case for women's ordination. In subsections she deals with Women and the Twelve, Women and the Divine Image, [End Page 141] Women and the Virgin Mary, and Gender and the Trinity. She asserts that women's sense of calling to ordination is not a factor arising from Western feminism but a re-calling of the church to its evangelical roots, that is, that all Christians have the capacity to communicate Christ to others. Women, no less than men, are coequal icons of Christ. Lee's text is clearly written and will be especially...