Catherine Clark Kroeger, PhD, (St. Paul, Minnesota December 12, 1925 – 14 February 2011) was an author, professor, New Testament scholar, and a leading figure within the biblical egalitarian movement. She founded the worldwide organization, Christians for Biblical Equality

Christians for Biblical Equality

Christians for Biblical Equality is non-profit organization of churches and individual members who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of believers of both sexes, all racial and ethnic groups and all economic classes...

 (CBE). A renowned speaker, Kroeger traveled the globe, opposing violence and the abuse of women, while also advancing the biblical basis for the shared leadership and authority of males and females.

Born Catherine Clark, daughter of Homer and Elizabeth Clark, in St. Paul, Minnesota, she graduated from Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....

 in 1947. Then she earned an MA and a PhD in Classical Studies from the University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

. She was married to her husband of 60 years, Richard Clark Kroeger Jr., a Presbyterian pastor. They served together in ten pastorates in five states. In their latter years they resided on Cape Cod in Brewster, Massachusetts. Richard Clark Kroeger Jr. died 9 November 2010, Catherine Clark Kroeger on 14 February 2011.

Leadership

Besides having founded Christians for Biblical Equality, she established Peace and Safety in the Christian Home (PASCH) and served as its founding president. After rearing five children, she served in leadership roles in many other organizations, serving on the Board of Trustees at Trinity Christian Academy

Trinity Christian Academy

Trinity Christian Academy is a conservative multidenominational Christian school in Addison, Texas, a suburb of Dallas that was founded in the late 1960s...

 and the Latham Center on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington

Spokane, Washington

Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

. She held membership in the American Academy of Religion

American Academy of Religion

The American Academy of Religion is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,...

, The Society of Biblical Literature

Society of Biblical Literature

The Society of Biblical Literature, founded 1880, is a constituent society of the American Council of Learned Societies , with the stated mission to "Foster Biblical Scholarship"...

, and the Evangelical Theological Society

Evangelical Theological Society

The Evangelical Theological Society is a professional society of Biblical scholars, educators, pastors, and students with the stated purpose of serving Jesus and his church by advancing evangelical scholarship. It was established in 1949 in Cincinnati. The number of members in 2005 was over 4,200...

. She was an active layperson in the Presbyterian Church USA. She was cited in Helen Kooiman Hosier's 100 Christian Women Who Changed the 20th Century, and received an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Houghton College

Houghton College

Houghton College is a Christian liberal arts college affiliated with the Wesleyan Church. The college is a member of both the Christian College Consortium and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities...

 in 2004. She held memberships in the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature and the Evangelical Theological Society.

Teaching

Dr. Kroeger's scholarly interests included women in ancient religion, human sexuality and biblical mandate, women of the Bible, women in the early church, Africans in the Bible and early church, Christian response to domestic abuse and the social world of the early church. She led many study tours into ancient world locations that still contain evidence of the active role of women in the early church. These included explorations of the catacombs, edifices, stone inscriptions, and other relics which she saw as evidence that in the early post-Resurrection era, the Christian church's respect and trust for women far exceeded their ecclesiastical status in later centuries, including the present.

Beginning in 1990 Dr. Kroeger became a ranked adjunct professor of classical and ministry studies at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary where she taught courses and mentored students and candidates for graduate degrees. She also served as Protestant chaplain and lecturer in the Department of Religion at Hamilton College.

Theological view on gender equality

Kroeger was well known as a conservative Christian who held a high view of the Bible as being divinely-inspired. Unlike many others who ignored or wrote off the so-called "difficult" passages of the Bible as being translation errors, scribal glosses, or other textual changes to the original, Kroeger went to great efforts to discern the original intent of the passage's author. This commitment, combined with her extensive classical studies research, led her to a highly detailed cultural and historical analysis to propose what was the real intent of the author of such passages.
A primary example of this paradigm permeates the book, I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence, which she coauthored with her husband. The verse this book takes on is one of the best known in Scripture regarding gender and one of the most difficult for most churches today in general. Most of the restrictions placed on women by many Christian churches stem from two passages: 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians (specifically ). The book presents Kroeger's view of the issues and problems Paul was addressing, along the author's understanding of Greek word usage, the Roman/Greek customs and laws of the day, and the outside influences on the Christian churches of the 1st Century. While holding firm to a literal approach to the verses, the Kroegers' research argued from the background of 1 Timothy 2:12 changes in the Greek language since the 1st century, Roman empire customs at the time the Apostle Paul wrote 1 Timothy, the problems that the church in Ephesus was facing with pagan religions that, according to the Kroegers' thesis, gnosticism

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

 was taking hold of the Christians at Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

, and the women were more prone to be misled by gnostic beliefs and then try to pass on those erroneous beliefs.

Publications

She authored, co-authored or edited thirteen books, including The IVP Women's Bible Commentary.

• Study Bible for Women, (Oxford University Press, Refugio del Abuso: Sandidad y Esperanza Para Mujeres Abusadas (with Nancy Nason-Clark; Grace Nelson, 2005)
• Refuge From Abuse: Hope and Healing for the Abused Christian Woman (with Nancy Nason-Clark; InterVarsity Press, 2004); Also available in Portuguese
• IVPress Women’s Bible Commentary, (Downers Grove, 2002)
• No Place for Abuse: Biblical and Practical Resources to Counteract Domestic Violence (with Nancy Nason-Clark; InterVarsity Press, 2001, 2010)
• Healing the Hurting: Giving Hope and Help to Abused Women (with James R. Beck; Baker Books, 1998)
• Women, Abuse, and the Bible: How Scripture Can Be Used to Hurt or to Heal (with James R. Beck; Baker Books, 1996)
• The Goddess Revival, cowritten with Aida Besançon Spencer, Donna F. G. Hailson and William David Spencer (Baker, 1995) The Goddess Revival was a 1996 Christianity Today Book Award winner
• I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence (with Richard Clark Kroeger; Baker Book House, 1992)
• NRSV Study Bible for Women New Testament (Baker Books, 1985)
• "Does Belief in Women’s Equality Lead to an Acceptance of Homosexual Practice?" Priscilla Papers, Spring 2004
• "Pandemonium and Silence at Corinth" (with Richard Kroeger),The Reformed Journal, June 1978
• The Women's Study Bible (ed.) Oxford University Press, USA (September 15, 2009) 0195291255
• Beyond Abuse in the Christian Home: Raising Voices for Change" (ed.), Nancy Nason-Clark & Barbara Fisher-Townsend. Wipf & Stock, 2008. 978-1556350863