In Tribute: Suzanne McCarthy, 1955-2015

In early 2008 I encountered Christian egalitarianism for the first time and embraced it with excitement and relief.  Finally, I could let go of my cognitive dissonance! I could believe in a God who hadn't arbitrarily consigned me to subordinate status; I could trust that I hadn't been created for subordination to a man while still somehow being his equal.

Naively I thought that any Christian who learned of this liberating new way of looking at Scripture would feel the same way I did.  Surely it would be a relief to them, too, to stop fighting against their better instincts the way I had had to fight mine.  Surely they would be happy to understand that God's ways were higher than the church's ways.  Surely they would be happy to see women set free.

And then, jarringly, upsettingly, I began to come across the counter-arguments.  The ones that said egalitarian Christians were in rebellion against God; that they were twisting the Scriptures because they didn't want to fulfill their God-given gender roles; that in their heart of hearts they loved the world and the world's culture too much to stand against it for Christ.  The Bible was plain and clear, they said.  How could I go against it?

Once I would have been willing to believe them, but the cage door was open and swinging, and I had found my way outside.  How could I go back in?  Dismayed, doubting myself, I looked for scholarly support for what I hoped, what I had to believe was somehow true, no matter what the accusations against it.  Men of God with credentials and letters after their names-- men like John Piper and Wayne Grudem-- were insisting that egalitarian scholarship regarding Greek words like "kephale" (translated "head" as in "the husband is the head of the wife") was mistaken and wrong-headed. I had no training in ancient languages.  Who should I believe?

It was then that I came across her blog-- or maybe I was directed there; I don't remember.

Suzanne McCarthy. Suzanne's Bookshelf.

Her bio simply said she was a woman living in Vancouver, Canada, but that she also blogged at Abecedaria, a scholarly site about language and letter systems.  As I used the blog search engine, it seemed that any topic on the complementarian/egalitarian debate that I typed in, she had addressed. As I read her words, I found myself encountering a singularly wise, compassionate, articulate scholar, who seemed to feel the same way I did about being consigned to female subordination.

For anything that Grudem or Piper said, Suzanne McCarthy had a strong answer, using facts and evidence from ancient language sources, showing how the words Paul and Peter used had been used by their historical and literary contempories.  For instance, here is an excerpt from one of her articles about how the word "kephale" ("head") was used by Philo of Alexandria:

The "head" is the virtuous person. I see no indication that this person has ruling authority. In another book, Philo gives an example of this kind of person, Philadelphus,

        "Ptolemy, surnamed Philadelphus, was the third in succession after Alexander, the monarch who subdued Egypt; and he was, in all virtues which can be displayed in government, the most excellent sovereign, not only of all those of his time, but of all that ever lived; so that even now, after the lapse of so many generations, his fame is still celebrated, as having left many instances and monuments of his magnanimity in the cities and districts of his kingdom, so that even now it is come to be a sort of proverbial expression to call excessive magnificence, and zeal, for honour and splendour in preparation, Philadelphian, from his name; (30) and, in a word, the whole family of the Ptolemies was exceedingly eminent and conspicuous above all other royal families, and among the Ptolemies, Philadelphus was the most illustrious; for all the rest put together scarcely did as many glorious and praiseworthy actions as this one king did by himself, being, as it were, the leader of the herd, and in a manner the head of all the kings." On Moses II:29 

Here "head" means "most illustrious" and simply cannot mean "authority over" since Philadelphus is head of the kings in his family who lived before him and followed him. He simply never had authority over the other kings in chronological succession with him. Was Philadelphus really the "ruling authority" over his own father? 

. . . Much still needs to be done to release men and women from a ruler - subject relationship, and allow them to enter into a relationship of hesed, which is "covenant love" and is simply called kindness, or lovingkindness in the King James Bible. The scriptures are so clear on the fact that hesed is the core value in relationships. [Emphasis added.]

At the time I first encountered her blog, Suzanne McCarthy's day job was teaching special-needs children.  Her gentle graciousness in imparting the wisdom she gained from these children seemed to shine a light into my soul:

The learning goals for the Down's syndrome child are to have her identify and express her choice or personal preference. The student also learns appropriate group behaviour and how to act as hostess and leader of the group. She plans, buys and prepares the food. She cleans up. She passes the food around and passes the pen for other students to record their choice. It is her event. 

Experiencing and expressing personal autonomy is essential to psychological health. These students are more than just trainable. We do not train even a child of the most limited ability as if she were anything less than fully human. She also has the experience of being the leader of the group. She controls the pace and responses. We each need the experience of functioning as a leader. We ask this for all of us, that we would also be able to experience and express choice in ways that are respectful of other people.

In a comment on her own post, Ms. McCarthy adds: "I thought that it was an important statement on authority/permission and the individual. We do not restrict even children to total submission."

To be human, she says, is to be able to make choices for oneself, to have personal agency.  Even those we might consider the least capable need the dignity of self-expression, the experience of autonomy, and a chance to try leadership.  Here is "do unto others" in a nutshell.  And here is the definitive answer to male headship, in a post where she never overtly mentions the topic.  If full humanity cannot be realized in a state of constant subordination, how can we Christians consign women to just such a state?

It seemed to me that I could hear Jesus saying, "I had Downs syndrome, and you helped me learn to make my own choices. I was a special needs child, and you gave me dignity. I had limited abilities, and you let me experience leadership. Inasmuch as you have done this to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you have done it to me."

Later, Suzanne began blogging on BLT: Bible Literature Translation, and she, with the other members of that group, ended up inviting me to join.  To be honest, with my simple Bachelor of Arts, I have always had a bit of an inferiority complex about posting my stuff among the much more erudite offerings of my fellow members-- but Suzanne McCarthy made a special effort to make me feel valued as a contributor, however infrequently I posted.

In January 2014 Suzanne announced on BLT that she had been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  It was in the context of this that she shared her post There are Worse Things than Dying:

No matter what, the overwhelming trauma of living 30 years in complementarianism will not fade. The further away I get, the more I experience a normal, loving life, the more I realize that I lived those 30 years in severe physical and psychological pain and trauma. I will never be able to describe the absolute terror of living 30 years in a form of bondage that was supposedly willed on me, not by culture, not by my own stupidity, but by God when he created the world. That is what I believed. I tremble as I write this. It brings on nausea and shaking. It was completely terrible. But that is what Carson teaches, but he has never experienced the trauma himself. He wills it on the other sex. 

Not all women experience complementarianism the way I did. However, the reality is that not once, while I was in the situation, did I express my true feelings about this belief. How would anyone know what women caught in this web of suppression really think? In the situation, there was a kind of numbness that keeps one going. There is a way to live and not live, at the same time. That is what it was like.

I did not experience complementarianism in marriage like that, but I do know and have experienced how God's name is taken in vain when it is used as an instrument of power and control.  As I read her words, I was humbled and blessed by the transparency and openness with which Suzanne McCarthy wrote. Her writing was embued with the power of her mind and the beauty of her heart, and I have to say it has spoken to me as few others have in my life.

Perhaps it's also because she loved the wild places like I do, and could write about them like this:

I am looking out my window
at the mountain now
That we climbed last fall
To train for further climbs we said
But we didn’t really know.

From the summit
we gazed down
On straits and islands
To the west
On city to the south

And to the north
The serried ranks
Of mauve tinted peaks
Reached to infinity.

We lay spreadeagled
on the soft sand table
The very topmost leaf of land
From which everywhere
Is down

And the ravens dipped
Out of the wild blue sky
And the thrumming beat
of their broad wings
Echoed through our bones
And their black serrated spans
pinned us to the earth

Then we hurried down
Heels digging in the gravel
And promised to each other
That we would return next summer

With pencils and paper,
Sketchpad and notebook
And a day’s worth of food and water

But we never did.

Instead

The mountain came to me
And I lay myself down
Face to the moss carpet
That edges the creeks
You cross as you ascend

This is the return
To the earth before Adam and Eve
When we were children playing
In the land before time
I see the children playing

-- that I feel as if we were in some way kindred spirits, even though we never personally met.

I will miss you, Suzanne McCarthy.  One day in eternity, I hope to take your hand and tell you how much you have meant to me. 

The Man as "Prophet, Priest and King" of Wife & Children

The teaching that a man is the "prophet, priest and king" of his home isn't new.  I've certainly heard it before.  In fact, the fundamentalist website National Center for Family-Integrated Churches recently reprinted a piece written in the 1600s by a Puritan named William Gurnall.  Here's a sample:

Every father hath the care of souls upon him. He is prophet, king, and priest in his own house, and from these will appear his duty. . . How comes it to pass that many...children, when they come to be themselves heads of families, are so unable to be their relations’ mouth to God in prayer, but because they have in their [childhood] lived in prayerless families and were kept in ignorance of this duty...?

In those times, of course, it was simply assumed by society at large that men were to be in authority over their wives and families, so Gurnall quotes a number of Old Testament passages about the Biblical authority roles of prophet, king and priest, and applies them to husbands and fathers.  I disagree, of course, with Gurnall's interpretation, but it isn't a particularly surprising one.  The ancient authority positions of prophet, priest and king were held in the Bible by numerous human beings.  Since male heads of families were also in authority positions, Bible passages about the roles and duties of such authorities would naturally be applied to them.  However, I might point out that Elizabeth I was Queen of England from 1558 to 1603, and Gurnall lived from 1616 to 1679.  He would not have been unfamiliar with the concept of women sometimes fulfilling authority positions, and he would probably have admitted that some of the Old Testament prophets were in fact female, and that at least one, Huldah, was treated as a voice of authority by an Old Testament king.

In fact, Gurnall's quote above uses the word "children" and not "sons" as those who can come to be heads of families, probably recognizing that in his time (the 17th century), some women were indeed heads of their households.  Gurnall does, however, focus on fathers as "prophets, priests and kings," and though I think Jesus actually taught something quite different about Christians and cultural authority, Gurnall's words are at least understandable in his social context.

Recently, though, I learned that a disturbing new trend is placing a very troubling contemporary twist on this notion.  A Sampling of Prophet/Priest/King Teaching by the Christian Patriarchal Watch List provides a number of links and quotes exposing this new trend.

Here's an example from Charisma Magazine:

Some men think Christ is Jesus’ last name. Of course, Christ is not a name but a title for Jesus that means “Messiah” or “anointed one.” Jesus loved the church—His family—as its Christ, or anointed one. Since husbands are to love their wives in the same way as the anointed one loves His family, they need to know exactly what Jesus was anointed to do. In the New Testament, as we shall see, husbands become anointed ones.[Emphasis added.]

In theology, Christ occupies the classic threefold office of prophet, priest and king. Let’s explore how this relates to you. 

Notice what is happening here.  The authority positions of prophet, priest and king, as held by various individuals in the Old Testament, are indeed brought together spiritually in the Person of Christ in the New Testament.  But before Christ, no two of these positions were held in the Bible by the same human being.  Certain men of the Levite tribe were priests, but there is no record of one of them ever becoming a prophet.  The line of anointed kings came from David, of the tribe of Judah, so the kings were not priests and the priests were not kings. Prophets came from various tribes but were not priests or kings.

God apparently thought it best not to concentrate too much authority or power in the hands of one person-- except in the Person of His divine Son.  Christ is the "anointed one" or "Messiah" precisely because He is not merely human, but "the Word become flesh" (John 1:14).  However, this concept of separation of powers did not carry through into the Christendom of the 17th-century West, where kings ruled by divine right and the monarch of England was also the ruler of England's Church. Gurnall thus sees no reason not to combine all three authoritative roles in the person of a male head of household. However, as I have understood this traditional teaching, it has not gone so far as to equate male headship authority with the divine anointing of Jesus Christ.

Until now.

Here's an excerpt from Rob Flood over at Family Life:

It has been widely accepted that Christ's activity on behalf of the church can be summarized in these three functional titles: Prophet, Priest and King. A brief look at each will give us keen insight into our role as husbands. 

Christ as Prophet: A prophet is someone who brings forth the Word of God to mankind. He is responsible for accurately discerning what God is saying and communicating that to others. Christ performed this prophetic role perfectly in two ways. First, He accurately spoke and taught the Word and words of God to others. Second, He was the actual expression of God and the Word made flesh. 

The Husband as Prophet: We have the amazing privilege of bringing forth the Word of God to our wives. While this might involve some actual Bible-teaching time, we need to see the various other forms this should take. We can proclaim His Word and His will as we counsel our wives, as we make family decisions and as we plan for our family's future. The common ingredient in all of its forms is God's Word. Without the Word of God, a prophet has nothing to say; his words are empty and meaningless. 

In addition to bringing forth the Word in our actions, we too must personify the Word made flesh in us. We must model the truth we are teaching. We must personify what we desire our wives and our marriages to become. Without personally living the truth we proclaim, we can expect no higher praise from Christ than the Pharisees received. (Matthew 23:2-4) 

Christ as Priest: A priest is an intercessor: someone who seeks God on behalf of someone else. As Priest, Jesus is constantly seeking God on our behalf. Through Him, we are made holy, righteous, and acceptable to God. Yet, this Priest is different from all others in that He did not sacrifice a lamb, dove, or bull. This Priest sacrificed Himself on our behalf. 

The Husband as Priest: As we love our wives, we must serve as priest. Our wives and marriages need prayer. We have the privilege and duty of petitioning God on their behalf. We should pray for their purity, their protection, their joy, their faith, and their burdens. We should pray for their success as a wife, as a mother, and as a woman of God. 

We must again follow Christ's example and allow our priestly sacrifice to be our very selves. Hebrews 12 tells us that Jesus looked past His own sacrifice to the joy that would occur on the other side. With that in mind, look at all that your wife could become. Consider what God might want to do with her, in her, and through her. And, for that joy set before you, willingly endure when you are called to sacrifice yourself. In so doing, you will love your wife as Christ loves His church. 

Christ as King: A king is someone who is supreme or preeminent. As our King, Christ deserves our honor, our praise, our obedience, and our servitude. He is in charge … the undisputed leader of the church. Paul speaks many times of Jesus as the head of the church. Yet, while this King rules and reigns, He also serves and ministers to His people. His rule is peculiar in that He models leadership by serving. He says that the greatest among His people will be those who serve. He also is an accessible King. In many courts throughout history, subjects were never permitted to be in the presence of their king. King Jesus invites us in; He leaves open the door to His throne room. 

The Husband as King: Ephesians 5:23 makes it clear; the husband is the head of the wife. In essence, kingship undeniably belongs to the husband. As we embrace that, we as husbands must lead. We must lead clearly and boldly. We must be out there on the edge looking to the provision and the protection of our kingdom. To do less is to fall short of our calling to headship. The privilege is ours to rule our home. 

However, we are not called simply to take our crowns and dominate our wives. We must rule as Christ rules … with humility. He modeled precisely how He wants us to love our wives. As our King, Christ knelt and washed the feet of His disciples. We must follow His example and serve. Lead boldly, yet serve. Never let the brawn of your leadership outweigh the sacrifice of your leadership. Christ kept them in perfect balance; that is our calling as well.

I applaud the article's insistence that husbands should serve and not dominate their wives-- but what this article is doing is turning husbands into little Christs in their homes.  Men are essentially being told to stand in the place of Jesus to their wives and children, setting themselves between them and God as an intermediary, exercising Christ's spiritual authority over them, and "personifying the Word made flesh" to them.

I believe the New Testament does teach that followers of Jesus are a "kingdom of priests" (1 Peter 2:9, Revelation 5:10), but that applies to women and men alike, and there is no New Testament passage that says one group of Christ's followers has the right to claim Christ's own anointing to take authority over others of Christ's followers.  There is a real problem with taking one verse out of Ephesians 5, "The husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church," and reading that as if it meant, "the husband is everything to the wife that Christ is to the church."  As K. Bonikowsky's blog The Happy Surprise points out:

I think we all agree that husbands do not literally become Christ. Husbands do not literally atone for their wives’ sin. Husbands are not the voice of God to their wives. Husbands do not have absolute authority over their wives’ lives. How do we know this? Because of clear passages elsewhere. 

Since Acts 4:12 shows Peter and John proclaiming, "Salvation is found in no one else [but Jesus Christ], for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved," orthodox Christianity does not allow that husbands can be the saviors of their wives, even though Ephesians 5:23 actually says "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior [emphasis added]." So the very wording of the passage itself shows that we cannot read it as meaning "the husband is everything to the wife that Christ is to the church."

As I have shown in detail elsewhere, I believe that Christ's role as "head" of the church would have been understood by the original biblical audience as a limited and very specific relationship, not a generalized statement of power and authority (for though Christ does have power and authority over the church, Christ's role as "head" is not about that):

“Head” of the church, therefore, would simply not have been seen by the original Ephesians readers as synonymous with “Lord” of the church. Neither would “head” of the wife have meant “lord” of the wife. Though Christ certainly is Lord of the church, He is also Savior, redeemer, sanctifier, recipient of worship, and Master of the church. But Paul deliberately limits husband’s role towards the wife, to being the “head.” Husbands are not to appropriate to themselves any of Christ’s other roles, or seek to become as Christ to their wives. This would be idolatry, and to the extent churches today encourage married couples in such a practice, they are teaching idolatry. . .

A pater familias, accustomed to a high and prominent position, and keeping Chapter 1 in mind as he read on through Chapter 5, would have understood that as “head” in Chapter 5, he was expected to “give himself” for his wife as Christ did for the church, with the result that the church was raised up to be glorious (Eph 5:25-27). Laying down his prominence of place in regards to his wife, and raising his wife up to be beside him in oneness, and exercising his social position on her behalf and for her good, is part of what it meant for a husband to be “head” to his wife as ‘body” in Ephesians 5.

The other place where the head-body metaphor is used for Christ and the church is in Chapter 4. Here Paul says, “But speaking the truth in love, [we] may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together. . . maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” Here the “head” is clearly seen as the source of growth and energy for the “body.” A pater familias, keeping this in mind as he read Chapter 5, would understand that as “head” in this sense, he was to “nourish and cherish” his wife as his own body (Eph 5:29).

But nothing about “leading” or “having authority over” the church or the wife is mentioned as part of the “head to body” relationship anywhere in the Epistle to the Ephesians. Nowhere is Christ as “head“ spoken of in terms of “leading” or “ruling” the church. Nowhere is the husband told to “lead” his wife or “rule” his household. And to the original audience, which was expecting to hear such words, the absence of any such words would have shouted.

The fact is that even though Christ is in a position of divine authority over the church, and even though husbands in ancient Ephesus were also in a position of earthly authority over their wives, the Ephesians 5 passage is primarily about husbands imitating Christ in laying down power and authority, not in stepping into Christ's own anointing and using that to exercise even greater power.  Jesus told His followers in Luke 22:25-27 and Matthew 20:25-27 that following Him simply wasn't about who got to be in charge.  Though Jesus did in fact have the right to claim ultimate authority, He instead laid it down and took the place of a servant, and that is what we are to imitate.

And yet looking at the "husband as prophet, priest and king" teachings being promulgated today, very little attention is paid to Christ's teachings, in the scramble to grab Christ's power:

Jesus was a prophet who spoke the Word of God to the people and was, in fact, the Word incarnate. A prophet speaks for God. 

A husband is to be the family prophet. He represents God to his wife (and, by extension, his family, the fruit of their union). When his wife reacts emotionally, he calms her with God's wisdom. He proclaims the gospel of faith to his family. He provides biblical instruction and training to his wife and children without becoming legalistic. He prepares family devotions and encourages private devotions. He is the arbiter of family values. He insists on regular church attendance. He is a messenger from God to his family.

Husbands are to be the anointed spiritual leaders of their wives. God has anointed you to lead your wife as her prophet, priest and king. Because of the fall, your wife, according to Genesis 3:16, has a desire for you that is best rendered "a desire that borders on disease."

Charisma Magazine: Exploring a Husband's Role as Prophet, Priest and King by Patrick Morley

And:

A husband can stand on the shoulders of others as he fulfills his prophetic responsibility to declare the truth of the Scriptures to his wife. He confronts sin and calls his wife to repentance . . . First, confronting sin and calling a wife to repentance may rock the domestic boat. A husband may decide he doesn't want to incur his wife's wrath. But he needs to obey God's call regardless of how his wife will respond. He may also fail to confront his wife ' s sin because he has a soft view of what it means to love her. Pointing out sin seems harsh and judgmental, not loving. But our example here is Christ, who loves us too much to overlook our sin. The same Prophet who wept over Jerusalem, pronouncing judgment on Israel, comes to us today by His Holy Spirit to convict us of our sin and to lead us to righteousness. If we begin to understand the consequences of sin for ourselves and for future generations, we will not think it loving to ignore or overlook our wives ' ongoing patterns of sinful behavior. 

Dennis Rainey, "Building Strong Families," quoted on the Patriarchal Watch List

Notice the complete lack of reciprocity here. The husband is the sole arbiter of family values, and he alone is treated as capable of teaching, training or proclaiming the gospel, while his wife (who, we would hope, is an adult with some understanding of her own faith) is mentioned only in terms of receiving his teaching and being "calmed" when she gets "emotional." She needs her husband to represent her before God, raising the question of whether she is allowed her own access to God through Christ, despite 2 Timothy 2:5.  Her "desire for her husband" according to Genesis 3:16 is interpreted in the most demeaning way possible, from a 19th-century male-written commentary.

And even though Matthew 18:15 shows that any Christian can take a Christian brother aside and point out sin to them, husbands are here given a special dispensation to point out sin in their wives in the same way Christ pronounced judgment on Jerusalem, while themselves appearing to need no such admonition.

The Patriarchal Watch List also has on the same page a screen shot of this illuminating list:

A Man as Intercessor in Prayer
A Man as Director of Religious Worship
A Man as Mediator of Divine Blessing
A Man as Instructor in Sacred Scripture
A Man as Judge in Holy Things

Hmm.  Apparently a scrotum is a miraculous organ which renders its bearer nearly divine, while lacking it turns his fellow human being into a creature nearly incapable of grasping spiritual things or approaching God.

Look.  I don't like to have to say something as harsh as this, but sometimes the truth has to be presented unvarnished.  While degrading the image of God in female humanity, this pernicious teaching essentially removes Jesus from the lives of a woman and her children and replaces Him with the husband-father as Christ to them. Put bluntly, it is nothing short of blasphemy, and needs to be addressed as such.

On its home page the Christian PatriarchalWatch List asks these highly pertinent questions:

Many of the ideas espoused by these groups are in fact "Biblical", i.e. verses can be strung together without regard to cultural context or the larger trajectory of Scripture to advocate a return to the highly patriarchal, highly stratified, master/subject social norms of the ancient world that Jesus transcended and began to transform. Is this really the timeless, universal ideal, the highest and the best way to read our Bibles? In a world where religious extremism is using women's bodies and souls as its battleground, is this really what we want to be the face of Christ in our world? Is this hierarchical vision of how we are to relate across the gender line what we want for our daughters and our sons? WWJD? What would Jesus Do? That is a good spell test. Would he re-create a hierarchical social structure from the Old Testament? Would he advocate raising boys to grow up to have such an exalted status as kings/priests with such unilateral authority and power and girls to serve them? Or would he chide us, as he did his disciples who jockeyed for a place of preeminence at his right and left hand? [Emphasis in original]

Husbands and fathers are not divinely anointed with Christ's threefold authority as Prophet, Priest and King! Husbands and fathers are our fellow human beings, made in the image of God but finite and fallen. In Matthew 23:9-11, Jesus said this:

Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

Brothers, please-- stop exalting yourselves. Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think (Romans 12:3). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said,

“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.”

In the long run this human appropriation of what belongs only to Christ cannot stand, but is destined to fail.  I suggest we all get back on shore before the ship sinks.

A Close Look at a Complementarian Argument

Complementarianism and the Local Church is an article by Jonathan Leeman on the 9 Marks website, which is a conservative evangelical site dedicated to "help[ing] pastors, future pastors, and church members see what a biblical church looks like, and to take practical steps for becoming one."  The site has published a series of articles on male headship, and the arguments are pretty much the same ones my various blog posts have rebutted though the last several years.  But this one, which seems to be an introduction to its male headship series, was brought to my attention on another blog, and I'd like to take a closer look at what it's actually saying and the implications of its reasoning. The basic subject is what's wrong with egalitarianism-- so this is my egalitarian rebuttal. 

I'll present it section by section, followed by my thoughts.

The issue of gender roles in the church and home is not one of the nine marks. Nonetheless, we thought it would be useful to spend an issue of the 9Marks Journal exploring the pastoral significance of complementarianism. Complementarianism teaches that God created men and women equal in worth and dignity and yet he assigned them different roles in the church and home. Its counterpoint, egalitarianism, argues that you can only say men and women are equal in worth if you let both assume equal leadership in church or home.

It's nice that he identifies complementarianism (male headship in the church and home) as not being one of the essentials that 9 Marks focuses on in church life.  There are some groups that consider complementarianism part of the gospel itself, and question the Christianity of those who don't agree-- but Leeman doesn't go that far.  Also, the basic definition of egalitarianism above, at least doesn't set it up as a flimsy strawman position. I would add the caveat, however, that there is one way you can say men and women are equal in worth but still restrict women from equal leadership-- if you fall back on God's plan to do this to women as something mysterious that cannot be questioned.  As I said in another blog post:

Either women are not equal to men, because God created them with a certain lack of authority over themselves, or ability to lead others, that men do not lack. And this lack is intrinsic to womanhood, while any lack a particular man may have in the area of leadership, is simply an individual characteristic, not intrinsic to his manhood. This makes women, in their essence as women, inferior to men.

Or women are equal to men, but God simply decided that women, because they are women, despite lacking nothing that He gave men for authority over themselves or leadership of others, may not use that authority or leadership. In other words, they are to be under male authority even though God did not design them or create them to be suited for being under male authority. This makes God, in His essence, arbitrary and unjust. He makes rules without good reasons.

The gist of Leeman's argument, however, takes a third path.  He argues that having authority is not actually any different than being under authority, and he does this by seemingly redefining authority. But before he gets there, he offers the basic argument that egalitarians are capitulating to worldly thinking rather than being submissive to the plain teaching of the Bible:

Egalitarianism possesses an obvious appeal in an individualistic age. Like the immigrant parent who abandoned the Old World with its castes or its aristocracies, egalitarianism looks affirmingly into the eyes of the little boy and the little girl and offers that quintessential American promise: “You can be anything you want to be.” Boundaries are gone. Ceilings have collapsed. God has given everyone certain talents. The game now is self-discovery and self-realization. Faithfulness requires us to discover and employ all our God-given potentialities. Like Madeline who says “Pooh pooh” to the tigers at the zoo, egalitarianism’s brave maxim is to one’s own self be true. 

Egalitarianism depends upon the worldview of individualism. That doesn’t mean egalitarians are all self-centered. It means that individual desires and talents trump any class or category considerations. So the rule-makers should never keep anyone belonging to the class of “female” from being whatever she wants to be. And complementarians, admittedly, limit what members of this class can be in the home and church. Based on the egalitarian’s sense of justice, this is irrational. It is 2+2=5. Complementarianism is not just a different perspective, it defies an egalitarian’s basic assumptions about what it means to be human and is therefore dangerous. How many of history’s grand exploitations and terrors have rooted in the systemic prejudice of one group over another! 

As such, the emotions and the rhetoric run hot, as they always do in political contests where the two sides appear irrational to one another. Why? Because our rationalities always derive from our gods. Or rather, what you take to be “most reasonable” or “most rational” is your god. A god cannot be questioned. A god is the unmoved mover. A god is the word or logic who cannot be overruled. Emotions boil hot because one’s gods hold one’s universe together and gives it meaning, so we go to battle for them. 

Precisely here, then, is where the complementarian, in all of his or her worldly folly, leans in toward the egalitarian and warns, “Be careful you are not serving an idol, at least in this one area of your doctrine. You’ll have a pretty good idea that you are if, in spite of the plain teaching of the text, you’ll find some justification for re-interpreting it because your sense of justice can imagine it no other way.”

Let's examine this more closely.  Egalitarians are wrong because of "individualism."  And Leeman defines individualism in terms of individual desires and talents taking precedence over classes and categories of humans.  The Bible, apparently, is not plagued by this problem of individualism.  This would mean that New Testament doctrines are primarily meant to focus on our identity as members of categories and classes.  This raises several questions, however.

Why do Jesus and the Apostles put such emphasis on the necessity of following Christ, trusting Christ, obeying Christ as an individual person?  Why didn't they simply preach to the leaders of the groups they were seeking to convert? Jesus could have talked to the heads of the synagogues in each town, gotten them to agree with His teachings, and then left them to instruct their congregations. Paul could have sought out the governors or the priests operating in Athens, in Corinth, in Rome.  The leaders, once converted, could then have ordered their people to report for mass baptism.

But it didn't work that way.  In fact, many (if not most) analyses of individualism agree that Christianity has historically been a major contributor to that philosophy. As Encyclopedia.com says:

Christianity contributed doctrines of the freedom of the will and personal salvation that added a further dimension to human individuality. Created as equal persons in God's image, human beings enjoy inherent dignity by virtue of the divine flame that burns within their souls. Christian moral teaching replaced status, race, gender, occupation, and all other markers of social difference with one's individual orientation toward God as the determinant of the ultimate disposition of one's soul. While Judaism had conveyed some overtones of personal salvation, the dominant relation with God was conditioned by the divine covenant with the Jewish people as a whole. In contrast, Jesus' message was directed to all people who were open to his words and treated them as individuals capable of receiving divine grace and blessing. Every person, as one of God's created, could, through individual effort and renunciation of worldly concerns, render him-or herself worthy for salvation. [Emphasis added.]

In fact, the idea of personal, individual salvation is one of the distinguishing marks of evangelicalism, and particularly of conservative evangelicalism-- to the point where it has been indicted for its emphasis on personal, individual sin and atonement while tending to ignore many systemic, social evils.  So the real issue seems to be not individualism, but a certain aspect of individualism. Should the focus on the individual apply only to personal salvation? Or should the value of the human individual mean that systemic injustices against individuals because they are part of a restricted group should be abolished? In other words, does the gospel apply only to our spiritual state before God-- or is it meant to "set the captives free" (Luke 4:18) in our earthly lives too?

A while back I wrote What Galatians 3:28 Cannot Mean, which rebuts the idea that when Paul said that in Christ the category and class distinctions of Jew and Greek, slave and free, and male and female no longer applied, he meant to separate our spiritual state from our earthly lives so that Gal. 3:28 only applies to spiritual salvation.  Yet that is the main idea, really, that Leeman's argument is espousing.  Any application of Galatians 3:28 to earthly, human classes and categories, so that women are set free of restrictions that apply to them as a class in their churches and homes, is "individualistic" and thus worldly and wrong.   However, individualism in spiritual salvation is wholly embraced by evangelicals, and is in fact central to the "Marks" of Gospel and Evangelism in Leeman's own 9 Marks of a Healthy Church.

I would contend that the problem American Christians face is not individualism per se, but the sacred/secular split that spiritualizes the value of the individual and sees life almost exclusively in terms of personal sin and righteousness while ignoring or even condoning the unjust treatment of people as members of categories and classes.

The final paragraph in Leeman's argument above includes this warning: “Be careful you are not serving an idol, at least in this one area of your doctrine. You’ll have a pretty good idea that you are if, in spite of the plain teaching of the text, you’ll find some justification for re-interpreting it because your sense of justice can imagine it no other way.”

Taking a stand on the "plain teaching of the text" and accusing of idolatry those who disagree about how "plain" it is, seems to me to be a kind of spiritual bullying.  It invokes the authority of God as a weapon to make sure the writer gets his way on what a particular proof-text means.  As Zach Hunt puts it in his blog post Why Proof-Texting is Not Like Other Sins:

This sort of proof-texting – ripping a Bible verse out of context to prove a point – is the traditional weapon of choice in fundamentalism because it allows the soldier who wields it to destroy his or her enemy with a single verse while claiming the impenetrable high ground of clear Biblical authority.

There is, in fact, a principle of interpretation that evangelicals (including, I'm sure, Leeman himself) use all the time:  If a particular verse, read at face value, appears to contradict a number of other verses, and especially if it appears to contradict the big-picture meanings of the texts considered together, the particular verse must be re-examined. 

Consider, for instance, this individual text:

She will be saved through childbearing — if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1 Timothy 2:15)

The plain sense of this verse is that women are saved through having babies, if they combine it with faith, love and holiness.  But complementarians such as Kim Ransleben on the Desiring God Blog re-interpret the text to be about the sanctification of women, not their salvation-- presumably because their sense of justice can imagine it no other way than that women, just like men, are saved through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  Applying Leeman's own litmus test to this, re-reading the text in this way is idolatry, plain and simple. And yet an "idolatry" that clings to the overarching message of the gospel over the supposedly plain text of an individual verse, hardly seems unfaithful to God.

So I would say that the problem is not in re-examining a verse that places women as a class, under the authority of men as a class, in light of the gospel message that we are all one in Christ Jesus.  The problem is in bullying other Christians with threats of God's displeasure if they dare to re-examine what you, a fellow human being, have decided is "plain."

The next section of Leeman's article goes like this:

Complementarians imagine a different kind of home and church than egalitarians. They are just as acquainted with authority fallen, but they can better imagine authority redeemed. They know that being in authority is no better than being under authority, because both are assignments given by God for the sake of serving him and his praise. They know that redeemed authority creates, enlivens, and empowers, and it’s a shade short of silly to argue over who gets to empower and who gets to be empowered in God’s kingdom. In fact, if there is an advantage to be had, it doesn't belong to the person called to lay down his life, it belongs to the person who receives life because the first person lays his down. 

The calculations of justice change just a bit in a kingdom where the king gives his life as a ransom for many; where he calls all of his citizens to surrender their lives so that they might gain them; and where he calls out a class of his citizens to specially demonstrate this self-sacrifice. Is there any “advantage” to climbing upon a cross? Not by any of this world’s tape measures. 

The trouble with egalitarianism is that it continues to measure “advantage” and “authority” and “over/under” with the tape measures of this fallen world. It’s stuck believing that, even if there are occasional advantages to being under authority for training purposes, in the final analysis it is always better to be over. Like the mother of the sons of Zebedee, egalitarianism asks Jesus,

Can my son sit at your right hand, while my daughter sits at your left, when you enter your kingdom?

And Jesus replies,

Ah, my child, you still do not understand how authority works in my kingdom, but are thinking about it like the Gentiles do, where authority is always used to lord it over others, not to give your life as a ransom (see Matt. 20:20-28). 

The true danger is that of believing it’s always better to be over. If that were true, its logic would apply to God. Happiness will finally elude us until we are over God, as someone intimated a very long time ago. And so we return to the caution against idolatry, which rests behind all the debates over gender and sexuality hermeneutics. What do the horrors of history really root in? They root in that one moment when all the authority in the universe was turned upside down because a man and a woman believed they could be “like God.” [Emphases in original.]

Here is where Leeman appears to redefine authority (but without actually succeeding in doing so). He says, truly enough, that the New Testament calls those in authority, and particularly husbands in Ephesians 5 (remember that in first-century Ephesus men culturally already had this authority), to lay down their lives, to self-sacrifice, and to raise up those under them.  But what he seems to lose track of is that what this actually involves, as described in Ephesians 5, is a surrender of the authority itself. When Jesus allowed Himself to be captured by the Roman authorities and nailed to a cross as a criminal, He was in that act letting go ("emptying Himself") of all His power and authority (see Philippians 2:5-8).  It's true that God restored Christ's authority to Him afterwards-- but the text of Ephesians 5 does not tell husbands to imitate Christ in the re-assumption of authority, but only in laying it down.

Also, in Matthew 23:11 Jesus did not say, "the greatest among you shall become your servant-leader." He said, "The greatest among you shall be your servant."  If Leeman believes that those in authority are to empower those under them, the best way to empower someone is to raise them out of subordination to be your equal, not to keep them in subordination to you.  Leeman glosses over the subordination of the one under authority, as if it no longer existed in a Christian concept of authority. But if the subordination no longer exists, then in what sense does the authority even exist?  Authority cannot simply be redefined so it no longer means authority-- and indeed, his emphasis on the danger of wanting to be "over God" makes it clear that this is not what Leeman really means.  To Leeman, a wife desiring to be equal in authority to her husband is the same sort of thing as wanting to usurp and depose God.  Christians who believe Jesus taught that the family of God consists of equal brothers and sisters, all under one Father and one Elder Brother who are the sole authorities,* are idolators in Leeman's book.

But if "redeemed authority" is still hierarchical human authority, and those under it are still under it, then there is a real difference, and the one in authority is superior in power and agency to the subordinate.  That is simply what the words mean, and glossing over those meanings doesn't make them go away.

Leeman's article concludes like this:

I understand that I’m making strong charges. And I hardly mean to indict Christians who hold to egalitarianism with wholesale idolatry. I do mean to indict aspects of egalitarianism as rooted in the gods of this world and the gods of the West in particular. It should not be surprising, therefore, to hear conservative voices characterize egalitarianism as the hermeneutical gateway drug to affirming same-sex marriage, or, ironically, to hear homosexuality-affirming liberal voices agree. Nor is it surprising that the egalitarian PCUSA should decide to affirm gay marriage, or that many of the evangelicals churches coming out now for gay marriage were egalitarian years ago. The same god who prioritizes the self-defining individual over and above 2000-years of Bible reading stands behind both positions. The same god whispers to both kinds of readers, “Surely the text couldn’t mean that. That would be unjust!” But who is defining justice here? Thomas Jefferson? Betty Friedan? Lady Gaga? 

Gender roles do not belong to the nine marks, as I said, but we believe they are critical to a church’s submission to Scripture and therefore its health. Fuller defenses of the position can be found at CBMW.org, which is run by Owen Strachan, who helped to compile the articles in this Journal. What you’ll find here are a number of pieces that examine the topic from different angles in the life of the church and church member. We pray they are beneficial.

Egalitarianism, he says, is rooted in idolatry, and embracing complementarian gender roles is crucial to fully obeying the Bible.  He throws in a version of the slippery slope argument (that if a Christian ceases to believe the doctrine of complementarianism, he or she will soon slip into worse errors like *gasp!* affirming same-sex marriage).  He tosses in the "this is what we've believed for 2000 years" argument, and implies that non-Christians couldn't possibly have any real idea of what justice means.

There is a problem with each of these arguments. First, as to the slippery slope argument: there was an article in the Atlantic last week on How Christians Turned Against Gay Conversion Therapy.  The fact is that whether we like it or not, we Christians are having to face the evidence that being attracted to the same sex is not something that can be cured or repented of.  This being true, we must rethink our approach towards people who, through no fault or choice of their own, want to marry someone of the same sex-- and many of these people trust in the same Christ we do.  In light of these facts, it makes sense to re-examine the proof-texts we've relied on in this matter.  After all, once the medieval church faced the fact that the earth did indeed revolve around the sun and not the other way around, it found that the proof-texts it had used against Galileo really could be read differently.

Perhaps what's going on is not that in rethinking these things, we're falling down a slippery slope. Perhaps what's really going on is that we're climbing a gradual ascent towards more compassion, acceptance and love towards people who aren't like ourselves.

Edited to add:  That said, the scriptures that have been used to restrict gender roles are of a different nature than those used to condemn gay marriage, and there is no reason to believe that changing one's mind about the restriction of women, necessarily implies changing one's mind about this other issue. Many egalitarians remain strongly against gay marriage.

Second, with regards to "2000 years of church tradition" -- for one thing, the complementarian position does not actually reflect 2000 years of church tradition. Complementarianism teaches that men and women are equal, but different in roles, while church tradition until recent times held that women were simply inferior.  In any event, evangelicalism is usually quite ready to admit that church tradition can be, and often is, mistaken.  Evangelicals long ago rejected the longstanding church traditions of the authority of the pope, of infant baptism, and of transubstantiation (that the communion elements become the actual body and blood of Christ).  Evangelicals only bring out the argument from tradition when tradition happens to support what they believe.

Finally, I disagree that giving women the freedom to lead** in their churches and homes is a "worldly" idea of justice.  As I detailed above, if women are not subordinated because they are inferior by nature, then their subordination is arbitrary and without reason-- and it is in clear violation of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," which is the ethic taught by our Lord Himself. Who would want to be consigned to a permanent subordinate status based on a purely arbitrary exclusion of one or more of his or her categories or classes of personhood?  And if we would not want it done to ourselves, we should not do it to others.

Also, non-believers are just as capable as believers of understanding "do unto others."  Jesus didn't mean it to be rocket science!  In fact, the fundamental knowledge that subordinating women is against "do unto others" is one of the big things that is keeping many non-believers from even considering Christianity.  They too are made in the image of God: they have a basic knowledge of what love is and what justice is, and they can see that some of the rules we Christians claim are from God, are neither loving nor just.

So I think I'll pass on accepting Leeman's indictment of worldliness and idolatry. And if what I consider most reasonable and most rational is my god, then I will proudly agree that my God is indeed reasonable and rational, not arbitrary, but loving and just.


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*My extensive study of the issue of authority in the Bible can be viewed here, here and here.

** I continue to draw a distinction between "authority," the power or right to be the leader, and simply leading, which can be done by any person or group of persons at any time if they have the skills and inclination for a particular season or role of leadership.

"Thus, Male Headship" - Christianity and Gender Essentialism

My last two posts have involved the use of sociological studies by Christians, in support of the doctrine of male headship, known in its harsher and gentler forms, respectively, as "Christian patriarchy" or "complementarianism."  Using science as a support for our premises is very characteristic of the culture of Western thought in which most of us have been steeped since birth. And of course, rebutting or debunking the science or scientific methodology behind premises we disagree with, comes from the same basic mindset.

The problem, as I mentioned in my last post, is when we pounce on evidence that seems to support our own position, while simultaneously ignoring evidence that seems to point the other direction. This is called "confirmation bias," which is defined in Science Daily as "a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions."  In addressing the science presented by male headship proponents, then, I'm attempting to avoid this bias myself.  Thus far, though, I have not seen any evidence that compellingly supports their position.

In this post I want to look a little deeper at underlying assumptions.  Why are these sociological studies being used to support male headship?  What is it that they are supposed to prove, that can then be used to say, "thus, male headship?"  The answer, I think, is this:

The studies examined in my last two posts, as used by male-headship proponents, are supposed to show that certain fundamental human traits are specific either to men or to women.  And these fundamental differences are then supposed to prove that men are meant to be in authority, while women are meant to be under authority.

This idea of specific, fundamental traits belonging to either one sex or the other, is called "gender essentialism."  Gender essentialism goes beyond biological differences between the sexes* to personality traits, fundamental desires and leanings, and so on.

This article at Ignitum Today illustrates Christian gender essentialism very clearly:

I am sorry to be the one to raise this issue but I am going to put it straight out there so there is no confusion: men and women are not equal. For two things to be perfectly equal they would need to be the same and it should be self-evident that a man and a woman are not the same. . . 

This is where society is getting it wrong; a false notion of equality. It begins at a subliminal level where the message is diffused that one’s gender is a social construction, meaning that a woman is a woman because she was dressed in a skirt and given dolls as a child, and a man is a man because he was dressed in trousers and given toy trucks. . . 

When a society fails to understand the nature of men and women it is true that everything can look unfair but we set rather arbitrary standards of where fairness lies. Men dominate senior positions in the largest global companies, most likely because they have particular natural abilities to do those tasks well. Women dominate the raising of the next generation of humanity and professions which nurture and educate, most likely because they have particular natural abilities to do those tasks well. 

Gender essentialists tend to resist the distinction between one's "sex," which is biological, and one's "gender," which is sociological.  They believe to be a man and to be masculine, or to be a woman and to be feminine are (or should be) the same thing.  They often do make a sort of disclaimer that not all men fit the pattern, nor do all women; as the article above goes on to say:

Of course there will always be men and women who have certain talents which mean they are better in tasks that are not as common for their sex and that is fine also.

However, when it comes right down to it, this deviation from the gender-essential norm usually isn't "just fine" after all.  The studies I examined in my last two posts show that there is always a percentage of the study group that goes against the trend-- but that doesn't stop male-headship proponents from confidently saying that the studies show the way "men" are and the way "women" are-- not "some" or even "most" men or women, but simply "men" and "women."  And thus, male headship.

My real problem is that the Christian assertion of gender essentialism is fundamentally unfalsifiable. That is, the way it is presented keeps it above the possibility of disproof, so Christians who believe in it never have to question it.  The argument is usually that if a man is presenting masculine traits, or a woman feminine traits, it is evidence of God's gender-essential design-- but if they fail to present those traits, or present opposite ones, it is because of human sinfulness.

Therefore, though deviation from the norm is acceptable in theory, in practice it's not, and many men and women who simply don't fit the norms are treated as if they were in sin.  As the Touchstone Magazine article I quoted two posts ago puts it, men who have been "feminized" by the Church of England's theological training become

wet, spineless, feeble-minded, or compromised. . . malleable creatures of the institution, unburdened by authenticity or conviction and incapable of leading and challenging. Men, in short, who would not stand up in a draft.

To not be "masculine" (which these gender-essentialists apparently define, fairly typically, as authoritative, independently minded and leadership-oriented) is to be weak and sinful. Similarly, the True Woman  website teaches that embracing the submissive, responsive, nurturing "Divine design of His female creation" will save us from the sinful, unfeminine pattern of unsubmissive, worldly womanhood:

Whether they realize it or not, the vast majority of Christian women have bought into this “new” way of thinking. In the home, the church, and the marketplace, they have adopted the values and belief system of the world around them. The world promises freedom and fulfillment to those who embrace its philosophy. But sadly, millions of women who have done so have ended up disillusioned, wounded, and in terrible bondage.

Thus, it becomes impossible to refute gender essentialism using the evidence of real women's experience. If a woman is quiet, gentle and submissive-- it's because it's natural for women to be that way. If a woman is assertive, extroverted, and leadership-oriented-- it's because of her sin nature that is fighting against her true nature. For real Christian women just trying to be themselves, it's a shaming and muffling experience. One kind of personality is honored and the other rejected and silenced, because God is limited by their interpretation of the Bible, as to what kind of woman He is allowed to make.

The percentages of deviation from the gender norms in the sociology cited by male headship proponents, therefore, might as well not exist.  Those who deviate are not being "real" men or "true" women, but are merely capitulating to wordliness or to sinful rebellion against their own natures. The sociology then becomes an unequivocable support for what male headship proponents believe the Bible teaches about the divine creation of the sexes.

But does the Bible actually teach that there are separate and distinct personality traits which God designed for one sex and not the other?  And even if it did so teach, would that lead irrevocably to "thus, male headship"?  Interestingly, Marc Cortez at Everyday Theology, who appears to be a complementarian, would answer "no" to both questions:

[T]he main problem lies in thinking that these two are logically connected such that complementarianism requires gender essentialism to work. So egalitarians invest considerable effort in defeating gender essentialism, and complementarians conversely go out of their way to defend it. As interesting as that conversation might be, though, both sides need to realize that complementarianism does not require gender essentialism. . . .

There does not need to be any essential difference between men and women for God to decide, for example, that only men can be elders. He can decide this for any reason he wants. He is, after all, God. 

People might worry that eliminating step 2 would render God’s decision somehow arbitrary, as though he simply flipped a coin to determine how the gender qualification would work. But that doesn’t follow either. The fact that God’s decision does not necessarily rest on some essential difference in human persons does not make his decision arbitrary; it just means that his decision rests on something else, possibly even something he hasn’t told us about.  [Emphasis in original.]

I don't think Cortez escapes the charge of arbitrariness simply by saying God, being God, must have some mysterious reason for denying and limiting women in church roles (the article doesn't discuss male headship in marriage).  If, as I have contended, denying and limiting women based purely on the fact that they are women is against "do unto others" and "love your neighbor," there seems very little justification for God to thus negate what He taught through His own Son, that "this is the law and the prophets." Matthew 7:12.

But Cortez is quite correct that this is a viable alternative to believing that God designed men and women according to gender essentials, such that men are designed for authority and women for submission to that authority.  As he says:

[T]he simple fact is that even if complementarianism is true, it’s hard to find the Bible giving any clear reason why certain roles/offices are limited to men. Some might point to 1 Timothy 2:11-15, a notoriously difficult passage. But whatever Paul intends by his explanation there, he doesn’t point to any essential differences between men and women. However you understand the reference to Adam being created first, that’s not an essential difference. My brother was born before me, but that doesn’t make his humanity essentially different than mine. And my parents may well give him greater authority in the family because he came before me, but that’s not an essential difference either. The same holds true for Adam and Eve. Adam’s being created first doesn’t present some kind of essential difference between men on women on the basis of which God decrees male headship. If the order of creation is significant for understanding gender roles in the church, a question for another time, it would only be because God decided to do it that way for reasons that he has not ever explained to us, not because mere temporal order establishes some kind of essential difference between the two genders. 

Again, I’m not going to walk through all the relevant passages. . . But for now I’ll leave it with saying that I don’t think there are any biblical passages that even complementarians should read as grounding ministry roles in some kind of gender essentialism. [Emphasis in original.]

Many times the Scripture passages that are used to support male headship are read in terms of gender essentialism: words like "head" are understood as showing God's design for men to be natural leaders and women to be natural followers.  But taking account of literary and cultural contexts results in grounding male authority firmly in the culture in which the writer was writing, and not as a divine mandate.  And when real, devoted Christian men and women just don't fit the norm, it doesn't make sense to simply write them off as being sinful or worldly.

There are plenty of other Bible passages that we don't interpret in the teeth of the evidence, insisting on face-value readings no matter what-- the passages on slavery, for instance.  We don't commandeer all the evidence we can find to prove that slavery is good and God-given (though we used to do just that), while we ignore all evidence to the contrary.

So isn't it time to give up on "thus, male headship"?



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*This whole argument by Christians also tends to ignore completely the existence of transgender people or others who don't fit into the binary boxes of male/masculine and female/feminine.  It's not my intention to ignore them or their struggles here, but in examining gender essentialism as used to support male headship, it's easier to stick with the categories used by male-headship proponents.  Let me here promote the voice of a Christian sister who is not cisgender, to show that there are more sides to this story.

"Men Need Respect, Women Need Love" - Really?

An anonymous commenter on my last blog post told me this:

God, in His wisdom, made man the head of the union between man and his wife. He has created a desire in the woman to be loved, and in the man to be respected, and there is no amount of social re-engineering that can change that.

This seems to me to be a good opportunity to address the whole love-vs-respect idea that most male-headship proponents espouse.  Where does this idea come from, that God made women to need love more than respect, and men to need respect more than love-- and that this is a basis for belief in male headship?

The chief source of this idea appears to be the very popular complementarian book Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.  Eggerichs is quoted in his guest series on this topic on the Focus on the Family blog:

Women need to feel loved, and men need to feel respected. This may explain why Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:33 that a husband must love his wife and a wife must respect her husband. Both commands are unconditional. The hard part is that respect comes more easily to men, and love comes easier to women.

To be fair, Eggerichs doesn't teach that men need only respect and not love, or that women need only love and not respect.  On his Love & Respect Website he elaborates:

We all need love and respect. I preach this and I teach this. I am not dogmatic in suggesting that a husband does not need love. I am not dogmatic in suggesting that a wife does not need respect. 

However, because Ephesians 5:33 reveals that a husband must love his wife and a wife must respect her husband, we see a distinction that is full of significance. Maybe we can answer this way: though we all need love and respect equally, like we all need water and food equally, a wife has a felt need for love and a husband has a felt need for respect. Said another way, she feels hunger pains for her husband’s love more often in the marriage and a husband feels more thirsty for his wife’s respect.

Ok, but is this really what Ephesians 5:33 is talking about?  Do men really feel more need for respect and women for love?

Psychologist Shauna Springer, PhD., wrote a rebuttal in This Psychology Today online article, questioning the universality of the results Eggerichs obtained from his study samples of 400 men and a similar number of women.  Four hundred is not a very big number from which to extrapolate to what all (or even most) men vs. women want.  Springer used a sample group that was deliberately weighted towards highly achieving women, and obtained the opposite result from Eggerichs' sample of women:

To test my theory that respect is equally critical for many women as for many men, I set out to profile the marriages of some of the smartest women I have known and their equally capable friends (The Lifestyle Poll). The first phase of data collection for The Lifestyle Poll was based heavily on a Harvard college graduate sample. In this group of 300 women, 75% reported that they would rather feel alone and unloved than disrespected and inadequate.

In other words, within this group of highly educated, accomplished women, the tendency to favor respect over love was equivalent in degree to the preference expressed among males that was used to launch a best-selling book predicated on what now seems to be an inaccurate assumption of a consistent gender difference. [Emphasis in original.]

Given the differences between Eggerichs' study results and Springer's, it appears that at least for women, their felt need for love vs. respect depends a lot on individual differences between women. The same is likely to be true for men.  If Eggerichs' study samples contained, for example, a high proportion of evangelicals, then the results he obtained may have been more related to the expectations of evangelical culture than to any general tendency in all men as opposed to all women.

In any event, common sense tells us that respect is part of love. You really can't love someone if you don't respect them, and a person who is treated without respect will not feel loved.  As the same Psychology Today article puts it:

At times, I thought that Eggerichs might begin to see how disrespect is at the core of many marital problems for wives as well as for husbands. For example, he says that a wife “yearns to be honored, valued and prized as a precious equal” (p. 11) and that wives “fear being a doormat,” (p. 53) and informs his male readers that a wife will feel “esteemed” when “you are proud of her and all that she does” and when “you value her opinion in the grey areas as not wrong but just different and valid” (p. 73). Why not just substitute the word “esteemed” with the word “respected?”

Words like "honor" and "esteem" are really pretty synonymous with "respect."  In fact, the Bible does indeed tell husbands to respect their wives:

Likewise, you husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. 1 Peter 3:7, King James 2000 version, Emphasis added.

Honor, especially in the honor-shame culture of the New Testament, is pretty much respect and then some.  To give someone "honor" in that culture was not just to be respectful and show esteem in your private lives together, but to give them public recognition and respect.

The Bible also advises that wives should love their husbands:

The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becomes holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sensible, to love their husbands, to love their children... Titus 2:3-4, King James 2000 version, Emphasis added. 

 So why this emphasis on respect vs. love in terms of men as opposed to women?

Some of this is simply confirmation bias, which is defined as "a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions."  We Christians may think we believe in male headship because the Bible teaches it, but we have to watch our tendency to conclude that the Bible teaches male headship because we believe in it.*

The idea that men feel the need for respect more than women do, tends to confirm the idea that men are natural leaders, and the idea that women feel the need for love more than men do, supports the idea that women are emotional, dependent beings-- and thus, male headship.  So a verse like Ephesians 5:33, which tells husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands, is easy to read as a statement of fundamental gender differences underlying the principle of male headship.

The problem is that other verses (like 1 Peter 3:7 and Titus 2:2-4) simply don't support the use of Ephesians 5:33 as a proof-text for a love-and-respect difference between men and women.  After all, if we were to base our theory of gender relations on 1 Peter 3:7 all by itself (as we've been taking Ephesians 5:33 all by itself), we would conclude that what women need most from their husbands is actually public honor.

So, since the social science doesn't seem to bear out this love-vs-respect differentiation between men and women either, then it's most likely that Ephesians 5:33 is talking about something else altogether.

What it comes down to, I think, is a fundamental failure to consider the Ephesians 5 passage in terms of its original authorial intent, as it would have been understood by its original audience. As I've said before, until we understand what it meant to them, we can't understand how to apply it to ourselves.

The real question to ask, then, is what were the basic dynamics of marriage in the time and place Paul was writing Ephesians?  To refrain from asking this question is to read into the Ephesian passage the modern, Western dynamic of married life: that is, that two people who are essentially social equals, with equal rights and responsibilities, fall in love with one another and choose one another to commit themselves to.  Thinking of marriage in this way does give us very little reason to think why Paul would tell men to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands, if these instructions were not related in some way to the male and female psyche.

However, what Paul was thinking about when he taught on marriage, and what his first-century Ephesian audience would have had in mind, was a different dynamic entirely.  As this brief synopsis on PBS.org states:

Marriage in Roman times was often not at all romantic. Rather, it was an agreement between families. Men would usually marry in their mid-twenties, while women married while they were still in their early teens. As they reached these ages, their parents would consult with friends to find suitable partners that could improve the family’s wealth or class.

As this article from Women in the Ancient World explains, marriage in the ancient Rome-controlled world did require the consent of the man and woman involved, but they often did not choose their spouse, but only consented to their family's choice.  And for a woman, especially if the family had substantial assets and it was her first marriage, there was an even greater expectation for her to go along with her father's choice and put his authority first:

[Y]oung girls were in no position to fight their parents even on something as important as the choice of a marriage partner. Over the years there was a gradual increase in women’s economic power and in their status in society, but a father’s right both in theory and in practice to choose at least the first husband of a daughter remained constant throughout the Republic and the Empire. . . For the last century or two of the Republic and throughout the Empire most marriages were “without manus.” That is to say, the wife remained under the authority of her father. If a woman had to be under someone’s control, a doting father living in another house was a much better bet than a husband.       

Further, though men also may have simply consented to, and not chosen, their bride, the groom was not expected to confine his sexual activity only to his wife. This scholarly paper by Claude Dauphin states:

The fourth century BC Athenian orator Apollodoros made it very clear in his speech Against Neaira quoted by Demosthenes (59.122) that 'we have courtesans for pleasure, and concubines for the daily service of our bodies, but wives for the production of legitimate offspring and to have reliable guardians of our household property'.

So instead of our understanding of a marital union by mutual consent of two partners who love each other and both swear to be faithful, the shared assumption between the writer and the audience of the letter to the Ephesians would have been an authority-subordinate arrangement for the benefit of the man, in which he would most likely have been 10 years or more older than the woman, and where she had little choice and few options.

I have written at length elsewhere about the historical-cultural understanding of marriage in Ephesians, in which I summarized:

Paul was trying to grow an infant religious movement, which meant not fighting existing authority structures– but if within the body of Christ, Christians in positions of authority did not act on that authority, but laid down their privilege and served, and where those in subordinate positions did not passively resist or actively rebel, but willingly gave their best and served, it would all end up in a kind of functional equality, existing in Christian households in an age where the concept of “equal rights” as we now know them, did not yet exist. Paul’s teachings on Christian relationships would, if followed, undermine ancient societal norms from within, eventually resulting in more just, equitable social structures in cultures influenced by these teachings.

 In light of this, what might Paul have been getting at by telling husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands in Eph. 5:33?

As the Scripture4All online interlinear informs us, the Greek word Paul uses for "love" in this verse is transliterated "agapato," while the word often translated as "respect" is "phobetai."  "Agapato" or "agapeo" is, according to Vines' Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, a kind of self-sacrificing, deliberate love that seeks first the good of the beloved, which is "the characteristic word of Christianity."(1966 ed., p. 20-21).  "Phobetai" or "phobeo," on the other hand, actually means "fear," and often refers to the respect one has for social structures of authority, as in Romans 13:6-7:

For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. (Emphasis added.)

Understood this way, what Paul is probably saying about love and respect in Ephesians 5:33 is probably something more like this:

Husbands, in this marriage relationship you have a lot more power and agency than your wife does. I've already told you to lay down your power and position just like Christ did, in order to raise your wife up as Christ raises up the church.  So love her as Christ loves the church!  Deny yourself for her sake; don't deny her for your own sake. Don't treat her as only a vessel to give you offspring, or as a servant to take care of your house.  Don't go visiting prostitutes or keeping mistresses.  Put her needs first, give yourself for her, and treat her with the care you use to take care of your own body.

And you wives, I know you didn't choose this man you're married to, and that your consent to this marriage may have meant very little.  I know he's much older than you.  I know that society has placed you as a woman, under male authority.  So I'm not expecting you to be able to give your husband the kind of self-giving love that I'm expecting him to give you.  But since in many cases you're still considering your primary authority over you to be your father, I'm asking you to turn to your husband instead.  I've already surprised you by treating you as not merely a possession for him to rule-- I've spoken to you as one who has a choice in the matter, because you're free in Christ.  I've asked you to choose to submit to him voluntarily, and to consider that a service to Christ.  So don't rebel against your husband, but respect the authority society has given him.  I've told him to lay down his power and privilege and raise you up as Christ raised up the church, so if he does as I ask, you'll find yourself by his side and sharing his power, rather than beneath him and obeying his power. 

Am I putting words in Paul's mouth?  Maybe-- but certainly not more so than those who say Paul was talking about some intrinsic characteristic of all women everywhere to need love more than respect, or of all men everywhere to need respect more than love.  If I'm putting words in Paul's mouth, at least they're along the lines of what he and his audience would have understood about marriage at the time he wrote his letter to the church at Ephesus.

If I'm putting words in Paul's mouth, at least they have the meanings he would have given to the words "love" and "respect," and not what they might sound like to us 2000 years later and half the globe away.

Love and respect are not gender distinctions supporting male headship.  As used in Ephesians 5, they're not stand-alone concepts that can be lifted out of context and used to make blanket statements about men vs. women.

And it really doesn't make sense anyway to build a whole theory of gender out of one verse.


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*Of course, confirmation bias can work the other way as well, as male-headship believers often tell gender-equality believers: that we want the Bible to teach gender equality and so we find that it does. Christian egalitarians need to be aware of this possibility-- but there are other compelling reasons to believe the Bible teaches gender equality than simply that we think it should.