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. 

"Equal But Subordinate" and Soft Complementarianism

My analysis of the "Equal but Subordinate" teaching on women in Christianity seems to be turning into a series.  I didn't intend to do this, but I do believe the implications of this teaching in its various manifestations should be addressed fully.  This, then, is Part 3 (and I hope the conclusion!)

My last two posts were on the basic position taught by the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood ("CBMW") that male authority and female subordination is intrinsic to manhood and womanhood, even to the point where it will continue in the new creation.  As I said in Part 2, if the CBMW really believed that male headship was not part of what it means to be a man--

then there ought to be times and places where women are not expected to defer to men or to acknowledge any inborn, natural ability and inclination towards authority in men over women, simply because of being born men.

The CBMW allows for no such exceptions, and thus their position is actually that women are inferior and men are superior, no matter what they may say otherwise.  This harms and damages women and belittles the image of God in us-- and it really isn't great for men either.  So before I proceed, I want to ask my readers to support the Freedom for Christian Women Coalition by signing their petition on Change.org demanding an apology from the CMBW for these harmful and erroneous teachings.  I don't think it matters whether this succeeds in changing the CBMW at all (it probably won't).  But we can still make a difference by adding our voices to call the CBMW to account, so that those who have been subjected to spiritual, emotional and/or physical harm will know they are not alone or unheard.

That said, I'll move on to the question that remains:  What about those who don't go as far as the CBMW does, but still believe in some form of male authority and female subordination as God's will for Christians?  People in this camp usually call themselves "soft complementarians," and they distinguish themselves from the "hard patriarchy" of the CBMW.  In general, soft complementarians disagree with the CBMW by saying that women may take positions of authority over men in the world of business or politics without violating their feminine natures.  Soft complementarians also don't generally say that male headship and female subordination in the church and in marriage (which they do uphold as God's will) is "part of the reality of creation" or the "divine principle weaved into the fabric of God's order for the universe," as I quoted the CBMW saying in my earlier posts.

The soft complementarian position is fairly well defined on the Gotquestions.org: Bible Questions Answered!  website.  Here is Gotquestions.org on women in the church:

God has ordained that only men are to serve in positions of spiritual teaching authority in the church. This is not because men are necessarily better teachers, or because women are inferior or less intelligent (which is not the case). It is simply the way God designed the church to function.

 And here is Gotquestions.org on marriage:

A wife should submit to her husband, not because women are inferior, but because that is how God designed the marital relationship to function.

Notice how this position ties female subordination to the "function" of the church or of marriage rather than to essential male or female humanity.  When my second blog post on this was reposted on No Longer Quivering, an astute commenter gave me feedback as follows:

[You said] "You can be equal and still in a position of submission to authority if the submission is part of the position, not part of who you are." By this do you mean you are OK with the husband having authority and the wife rendering submission to his position of authority in their marriage?

and:

"Kristen clearly expresses her disagreement with an "ontological inequality" as John Piper teaches it (while denying he's teaching it, of course), but states she has no problem with "functional inequality".  Complementarians teach and practice what they believe to be functional inequality. . . [S]ome complementarians would have no problem working for a female boss, complementarian wives work outside of the home, some as employees and some even as employers or in positions above men. Some complementarian women teach, even at Christian colleges, but they may be restricted from teaching doctrine. It seems like SOME complementarians really do believe in in a more functional and restricted inequality.

So the question is, if I have no problem with "functional inequality," (such as exists between a boss and an employee, related to their functions or positions and not to their being), why would I have a problem with the soft complementarian position that limits male headship to the "functions" or "positions" of church and marriage, and does not support it in other areas of life?

Well, here's the problem.  I disagree that either of these are ultimately about function or position just because they're limited to the marriage relationship or within the church. A woman is not under authority in marriage or restricted in the church because she's married or because she's a church member-- she's under authority or restricted because she's a woman. Hence her subordination is still not related to her position but to her being.

This is clear because when men become church members, they are not automatically restricted from the pastorate. In other words, the restriction from becoming a pastor is not related to one's position as a church member. It's related to one's being as a female. A man is restricted from the pastorate only by his qualifications, training and giftings. The woman is restricted even if she has the appropriate qualifications, training and giftings.

The same goes for marriage. One doesn't come under authority by getting married-- one comes under authority by being a woman who gets married.

The employer-employee situation is easy to distinguish from these.  Either a woman or a man may be an employee or a boss in an employment relationship. The difference is in the position, not in one's being when entering the employment relationship.

Soft complementarianism still says the woman must be subordinate in these two areas-- the church and the home-- without exceptions.  So the equality it grants women in business and politics does not negate the implication of her being-related lack of authority in the home and church.  Although her subordination is limited to those two situations, within those situations it still applies across the board and is related to the woman's being within the function, not to the function itself.

So since this is ultimately about being and not function, the question is why a woman's being would be subordinated in these two areas.  If not because of her essential nature, then why?

What does it say about women when you insist that they are functionally equal only in the more external worlds of business and politics, but in their intimate personal and spiritual lives they are subordinate?  Are you saying something, intentionally or not, about the personal and spiritual nature of women?  Or if you still insist this is not about women's nature, are you maybe saying something unintentional about the nature of the God who would so subordinate her?

I addressed this question some time back in my blog post entitled  "But That's What the Bible Says":

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.

You see, you can't tie the fundamentally unequal characteristics of authority to one group and subordination to another group, based on something like the sexes (which people are born with and have no control over), without rendering them as groups unequal.  If you tie the characteristic to the group's very nature (as CBMW does), then you deny the equality of that group in any real sense at all.  But if you tie the characteristic to the group functionally, as soft complementarianism does, even though you say the groups are equal by nature and there is no difference in the group's ability, as a group, to perform the function-- then you have no justifiable basis for the unequal treatment. And if you then claim this unjustifiable, unequal treatment is from God-- you have turned God into something you never intended.  "Because God said so" doesn't exactly glorify God.

Dividing humanity into two subsets based on their chromosomes, and then giving each entire subset a different and unequal status, results in a class system.  If a woman must be under male authority in the church and in the home because she's a woman, then regardless of what she can do in other areas of life, she's in a lower class-- just one with a few less restrictions than the CBMW would impose.

Jesus did not come to enforce a class system. He came to teach mutual service and that "the last shall be first." (Matthew 20:16)

So why am I so angry with the CBMW and not with soft complementarians?

Because soft complementarians, in treating women's inequality as functional and limited, do avoid in practice the harmful and degrading view of womanhood as intrinsically subordinate, as espoused by the CBMW. Soft complementarians do often unconsciously act on the unspoken (and un-faced-up-to) implications of their view in a certain paternalism towards women-- but because they acknowledge that woman are able to lead men at least in the public sphere, they do usually truly respect the strengths, talents and giftings of women.

Also, when soft complementarian men follow the biblical admonitions to love and serve their wives, they often end up, instead of giving lip-service to equality, giving lip-service to headship. A soft complementarian couple may claim the man is the "head," but in practical day-to-day living they function as equals, with the man taking very seriously his duty to serve his wife and put her needs first.  In short, I think they end up where Paul's teaching to first-century patriarchal marriages intended to lead them-- each partner focusing on serving the other, in mutual submission (see Eph. 5:21), without worrying about who was in charge.

Ultimately, "equal but subordinate" as a view of women doesn't work.  It is self-contradictory whether viewed in terms of being or of function-- it's simply more dangerous to women when viewed in terms of being.  In marriage, soft complementarians usually end up acknowledging a watered-down version in theory, while ignoring it in practice.  But the best way to deal with the concept "equal but subordinate" is simply to scrap it.

The Logical Fallacy of "Equal But Subordinate"

Julie Anne over at Spiritual Sounding Board has drawn the blogosphere's attention this week to an article that the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood ("CBMW") posted in its Spring 2006 Journal entitled "Relationships and Roles in the New Creation," written by Mark David Walton. Spiritual Sounding Board put up its first post on this dated March 12, 2014, and the CBMW has since removed this article from its website.  However, this screen shot captures the withdrawn article.

The gist of the article is that male headship and female subordination are part of the very nature of manhood and womanhood, and thus will continue in the next life: that the full arrival of the New Creation in Christ will simply be a more complete and joyful enacting of our gender roles.

In referring to "gender roles," CMBW does not mean only that women take care of the house while men provide for the house; indeed, if that were the extent of it, it would be annoying but not nearly so dangerous.  No, what CBMW means by "gender roles" is that men were designed by God for "headship" over women, while women were designed by God for "joyful submission" to male headship (i.e., willing subordination).  Since according to CBMW, headship and subordination are part and parcel of what it means, respectively, to be a man or a woman, the logical conclusion would in fact be that these would continue into the next life. As the article puts it:

Complementarity [by which is meant male headship/female subordination] is not just an accommodation to the less-than-perfect conditions that prevailed during the first century.  Rather, it is a divine principle weaved into the fabric of God's order for the universe. . . . To deny the very concept of male headship on the false assumption that it is incompatible with creation ideals is, at best, reckless theology.

The Strange Figures blog has written a very humorous parody of the article-- here's a sample:

To our dear sisters in Christ, 

Greetings to you in the name of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who has bought us with His blood, purchasing for Himself a people reflecting the richness of biblical manhood and womanhood. . .

For we have taught you always that your rank as women is part of the divine order, God’s prelapsarian will for the “better half” of his highest creation (if you will permit us a tiny and theologically unsound joke). If submission is God’s will for you in this mortal life, would it not also be His will for you in heaven? Heaven will be a return to the lost edenic dream in which you were created to be helpmeets to the “adams” God has appointed over you, and we look forward with anticipation to the blessings that will come to you when that perfect vision is restored.

Besides the fact that the idea of a new heavens and new earth in which I as a woman will be eternally subordinate-- perhaps to all males, but at least to my husband, my father, my father-in-law, my grandfather, my grandfather-in-law (and so on down to the roots of the family tree) smells a bit more of fire and brimstone than any self-respecting concept of eternal bliss really has any business smelling of-- there are some serious logical flaws in this whole line of thought.

I want to particularly address this line of reasoning from the article:

At the very heart of the feminist movement is the conviction that there can be no true equality as long as gender-based differentiation of roles and responsibility remain. . . Only where there is functional equivalence between the sexes does equality exist. . . [But this] premise is false because functional equivalence cannot be genuinely necessary to genuine equality.  A biblical worldview understands that the locus of worth of a human life does not reside in any physical, emotional or intellectual attribute or possession.  Neither is it to be found in the individual's functionality or potential for productivity.  The worth of each person is based upon the truth that he or she bears the imago dei, the image of God. . . . Feminists, both secular and evangelical, define equality in terms of functionality rather than ontologically-- on the basis of being.  They err by effectively reducing equality to "sameness". . . We can be certain, however, that the new creation will be characterized not by sameness but by incredible diversity- diversity of abilities, diversity of gifts, and diversity of rewards. [Emphases in original.]

CBMW is here saying that all individuals have differing gifts and abilities and thus are not functionally equal, but are still ontologically equal: equal in their essential being or nature.  Male and female gender roles are like this, the article implies.  Just because women have differing gifts and abilities (and thus differing roles and responsibilities) than men does not make them essentially non-equal.  If one person is gifted to be an entrepreneur and another to be a car mechanic, this functional difference does not equal an ontological difference.  Both are made in the image of God and are thus equal in their very being, even though not equal in their gifts and abilities.

The difficulty here, of course, is that no "feminists" have actually denied this.  As a Christian egalitarian and a Jesus feminist, I do not in fact believe what he says I believe: that functional equivalence is necessary for true equality-- nor is this conclusion implied by my position.  The idea is not that a particular man and a particular woman cannot be equal if he is leadership-oriented and she really prefers a supportive role.  No-- the egalitarian/feminist objection to male headship is not based on a requirement for functional equivalence.  The objection is actually based on a false equation: that male headship/female subordination IS actually a functional difference. It is in reality an ontological one. 

In order to see where I'm going with this, it's important to understand the distinction between necessary (or essential) and accidental properties, as these terms are used in philosophy.  As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains:

[A]n essential property of an object is a property that it must have while an accidental property of an object is one that it happens to have but that it could lack. . . In the characterization just given of the distinction between essential and accidental properties, the use of the word “must” reflects the fact that necessity is invoked, while the use of the word “could” reflects that possibility is invoked. . . [T]o say that an object must have a certain property is to say that it could not lack it; and to say that an object could have a certain property is to say that it is not the case that it must lack it. 

Many would say that each individual human could not fail to be human; if so, . . . the property of being human [is] an essential property of each human. And, too, many would say that although someone, say X, is in fact fond of dogs, X could have lacked that property; if that is right, then. . . the property of being fond of dogs [is] an accidental property of X.

Keeping those definitions in mind, it is clear that maleness or femaleness is an accidental property of being human.  A human could be male and still be human; she could be female and still be human; a human could in fact be intersex and still be human.  There is, then, a subset of humanity which is male and a subset which is female, and both subsets are human.  Let's look, then at what the CBMW article does with the concepts of headship and subordination as they relate to male and female humanity.

In the ordering of his creation. . . God formed the man first and gave him responsibility and authority as the head of the human race.  This headship, far from being a result of the fall - feminist and egalitarian claims notwithstanding - is a central feature of the divine created order.  Because the new creation is, fundamentally, a return to the divine order that prevailed before the fall, it follows that male headship will remain in the new creation. . . . The principle of headship and submission in male-female relations is clearly affirmed in the New Testament. Furthermore, nowhere in Scripture is this principle replaced or rescinded. . .  There is every reason to believe, then, that male headship will continue as the divine order for male-female relationships. [Emphasis added.]

Notice what is happening here. God built male headship into humanity at creation and ordained that it would continue always. In other words, CMBW has assigned this quality - headship - as an essential attribute of those possessing one particular accidental trait: that of maleness. And they have assigned another quality - subordination/submission - as an essential attribute of those possessing another accidental trait: that of femaleness.  Remember that it is the essential traits that make a thing ontologically itself.  A human cannot be genetically non-human, because the human genome is essential to the being (the ontology) of humanness.  CBMW is saying that headship is part of what makes male humans ontologically male, while subordination is part of what makes female humans ontologically female.

Now, we might say that possession of the XX chromosome is essential to being a female human, and that possession of the XY chromosome is essential to being a male human.  We might also say that the potential ability to bear children is essential to being female, though a particular female human can have the accidental quality of being actually unable to bear children. Equivalently, the potential ability to engender children is essential to being a male human, while an actual inability to engender children would be an accidental quality of a particular male human. But notice how the essential qualities are equivalent.  There is no essential ability in the one that does not correspond to an equal and corresponding essential ability in the other.  One does not have an essential ability (potential procreation) which the other lacks, but both male and female are essential to human procreation.  In other words, these essential properties are equal and result in ontological equality in male and female human beings. 

The same is true of the imago dei which the CBMW article quite rightly identifies as the essential spiritual quality of humanness.  Both male and female humans are equally made in the image of God. The image of God is not lesser or diminished in one human sex. To be made in the image of God is what it means to be human: this is a necessary/essential property of humanness.

But what does it mean to say that the subset of humans with the trait of maleness essentially possess headship, while the subset with the trait of femaleness essentially are subordinate to that headship? Submission and subordination are not positive ontological qualities in and of themselves; they are, rather, responses to the ontological quality of headship in the other.  The human with headship is the agent, the mover, the one who acts.  The subordinate human follows and responds to the agent and mover. Subordination is not an essential ability which is equal and corresponding to headship.  It is in every way a lesser and dependent quality to the quality of headship.

If headship is essential to male humanity and subordination/submission is essential to female humanity, and since the essential attributes are what make a thing ontologically itself, then male humanity in its very essence possesses a quality which female humanity in its very essence lacks and is dependent upon.  The result is that given these definitions of the nature of male and female humans, female humanity then logically and necessarily becomes ontologically lesser to male humanity.

We simply are not talking about functional differences here!  If the nature of human maleness is headship and the nature of human femaleness is subordination, then what we have are two classes of humanity which are superior and inferior by their very natures. This is what egalitarians and feminists object to-- and this is what CBMW, intentionally or not, is holding forth as a truth not simply of this world, but of the one to come.

What, then, happens to a verse like Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus"?  CBMW's position is that this applies only to our standing in Christ in terms of salvation; that it means nothing with regards to male headship and female subordination in the body of Christ today or in eternity.  But if headship and subordination are essential and therefore ontological traits of male vs. female humanity, and if headship and subordination are therefore going to continue even into the fullness of the New Creation, then Galatians 3:28 means exactly nothing at all.  Our standing in Christ does not and never will add to female humanity this additional human quality of headship which it now lacks and always will lack.  In Christ, in fact, there absolutely is "male and female," now and forever.

And yet it is the CBMW which insists that egalitarians have a "chronic conundrum" of "how to reconcile passages that are . . . plainly inconsistent" with their worldview.  Egalitarian interpretations usually show how historical-cultural understandings of particular texts give them different applications for today.  They do not simply render a scriptural passage, to all intents and purposes, moot and fundamentally meaningless.

I try to avoid in principle speculations into the motives and internal character of other Christians, so I will not offer any opinion on why CBMW has removed their article "Relationships and Roles in the New Creation" from their website.  I will simply say that the article does reflect the logical conclusion of male headship thinking, that its logical conclusion contradicts its own premise of male-female ontological equality-- and that it contemplates a supposedly divine reality that I would really rather be excused from ever having to live in.

Why I'm a Jesus Feminist

Jesus Feminist is the title of a new book by Christian writer, blogger and editor Sarah Bessey.  She is holding a synchroblog this week for people who, despite or perhaps because of their fears about using this potentially controversial name, still want to say "I'm a Jesus Feminist."

I'm a Jesus Feminist.

Because this quote from Sarah Bessey's book is nothing more nor less than what I have been saying on this blog for the last two years. (I'm sure her book says a lot more, though, and I really want to read it!)

Because neither Jesus nor feminism should be defined according to how they are represented by vocal extremes.

Because my Savior came to proclaim liberty to the captives.  Because feminism, when not defined by extremes, proclaims the simple truth that women and men are equal in humanity, equal in dignity, equal in worth.

Equal, Jesus feminism adds, in Imago Dei, the image of God.  Equal in the pouring out of God's Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17).  For the sake of the gospel of Christ, who said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10), a woman must be free.

I became a Christian at the age of 15.  But I think I've always been a feminist.

In 1963 when I was born, men were still firmly in charge of everything.  I remember my mother trying hard to make everything just right for when my father came home.  She'd have his cocktail and slippers waiting, and dinner on the stove.  I grew up understanding housework as a woman's job, and earning money as a man's job.  I knew that because I was a girl, I would not be drafted if the Vietnam War or some other conflict was still raging when I came age-- and that my parents were profoundly grateful for that.   And I knew my father had the ultimate say at our house, though my mother usually got her way anyway.

Yet I also knew to the depths of my soul that I was as good as any boy.  I was smart.  Schoolwork came easy for me.  I knew I was a person, as valuable as any other person, male or female.  And despite the non-verbal messages they were giving me, my parents also told me that if I worked hard and developed my skills and talents, I could be anything I wanted.  No one ever said, "That is, if you were a boy. . . "

Until I became a Christian.

Not right away.  Not when I was still a "baby believer," figuring out what it meant to have been born again. But soon.

"You are a woman of God," the church told me.  "Learn to be a submissive wife to the husband you'll have someday.  Learn to be a homemaker and mother like the Proverbs 31 woman.  You can speak in church, and even be a leader, but only a leader of other women.  Embrace your calling, and don't sin by wanting something other than you were created to be."

Created to be led.  Created to be restricted.  Created to be subordinate.

Equal, but somehow less.

And I learned to embrace this because I thought it was the only way to be a Christian. I took comfort in the idea that Jesus submitted to the Father's authority even though He was equal to the Father.  That my subordination was by choice, something an equal could choose to do, which meant I remained an equal making a decision, not an inferior accepting the inevitable.

Even though subordination was presented as the only choice, if I really wanted to follow Christ and obey God.   Even though the leader-follower relationship between me and the man I married in 1988 often felt forced, even hypocritical, as if we were giving lip service to a hierarchy we somehow couldn't seem to actually bring off.

Even though there didn't really seem to be anything about the women I knew that made them less suited to be elders or pastors.

I lived with this cognitive dissonance for years and years.  And then in February 2008 a scholarly blogger friend of mine who called himself Metacrock introduced me to his friends at the Egalitarian Christian Alliance and their Equality Central Forum.

Only five years ago.   And yet it changed so many things.

It felt like walking from a darkened room into sunlight.

I found out that there was a different way to read the Bible, that spent more time exploring its historical and cultural context.  A way that focused on finding, as far as possible, the original author's intended communication, as it would have been understood by the original readers.  A way that stepped back from individual bits of text to view the grand sweep of the whole story of God's revelation to humanity.  A way that looked at the new creation and the kingdom of God as things both now and not yet-- culminations of the gospel which will one day finally end all injustice and inequity.

And it didn't seem to be about subordinating or limiting or restricting people, but about setting us all free.  Men and women alike, free of restricting roles (you must be the conqueror, you the nurturer; you must always be the leader, you always the follower) to become fully themselves, whoever and whatever they were created to be.  And this idea, this radical release from categories and their fetters, seemed to anticipate the fullness of God's kingdom and the new creation that is and is to come: "Neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, not male and female."  Galatians 3:28.  Maybe we really could all be "one in Christ Jesus."   Maybe we really could stop viewing one another according to the flesh. (2 Corinthians 5:16).  Maybe instead of one leading and one following, a man and a woman could go where God sent them together, by mutual agreement, hand in hand.

And maybe this has always been meant to start here in this world, with Jesus and the way He treated people-- especially women-- as the first fruits.  Maybe that's why He chose women to announce His resurrection.  Maybe that's why He said, "The greatest among you shall be the servant.  For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."  Matthew 23:11-12.

In the end I embraced Jesus feminism because it was the only thing that made sense to me.  The way out of cognitive dissonance into a new phase of relationship with Him, dizzy with thankfulness and new-found freedom.  The way to rediscover what I had always, deep-down, been sure of.

Being female does not mean I am less.  That I'm "equal-but."  That I'm in the Imago Dei, but somehow not quite as much as if I were male.

No.  I was created in His image (Genesis 1:27) and recreated in Christ Jesus to do good works (Ephesians 2:10).  It is God's good pleasure to give me the kingdom (Luke 12:32) which we all enter in the same way-- as little children, without privilege or status greater than anyone else.

I'm still as good as any boy.  I wasn't born to be restricted and subordinated and led. And my sisters and I must be free.

For the Bible-- and my Jesus-- tell me so.

The "Jezebel Spirit" Teaching: Priming Churches for Spiritual Abuse

It's a story my husband Jeff likes to tell from before we were married.

We were both members of a coercive Christian group of "charismatic" persuasion-- meaning that the group believed in supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Like most charismatic groups, our church believed that Christians and churches could be harassed by, or even come under the power of, demonic spirits. We believed God had called us to "rebuke" such spirits in the name of Jesus and drive them out of our lives and the lives of others.

One evening Jeff was sitting in the living room of the apartment he shared with his roommate (I'll call him Mike). Mike's best friend (let's say his name was Dave) was visiting, as he often did.  The evening news came on.

Dave stared for a minute at the female news anchor, who was speaking in an assertive, confident voice.  He raised his hand in a karate-chop motion and shook it at the screen.  "I rebuke that Jezebel spirit in the name of Jesus!" he said.  Mike nodded agreement.

My future husband stopped himself from rolling his eyes.  "Why are you doing that?" he asked.

"Look at her!" Dave said.  "She's controlling and bossy.  She thinks she can take over a man's role.  She's got a Jezebel spirit!"

Jeff sighed, but didn't try to argue. There wasn't really any point.  Mike and Dave's ideas were right in line with our church's teachings.  Jeff's disagreement would only be looked at askance.  But even then he didn't see that simply doing a news anchor's job while female indicated the presence of a "Jezebel spirit."

Jeff and I left the charismatic movement when we left our Maranatha Campus Ministries church, some years after we were married.  I have nothing against the charismatic movement in general; I think their emphasis on real-life experience of the divine is a valuable and needed part of Christianity as a whole.  But even some charismatics have problems with belief in the existence of a "Jezebel spirit." As my online friend and respected colleague "TL" at SpoudazO Logos says,

It is unfortunate that there are those who have added to Scripture to claim that an evil woman of the Old Testament is now a female demon going about influencing mostly women to be like her in Christian churches. There is no biblical ‘spirit of jezebel’. What there is, is a real woman who lived and died. . . Her spirit does not roam the earth in the form of a demon and influence people.

Unfortunately, as far as online charismatic voices are concerned, TL is definitely in the minority. Googling "Jezebel Spirit" yields multiple websites dedicated to describing the supposed Jezebel spirit and giving points on how to fight it. There are also a number of books specifically about the Jezebel spirit: Iowa pastor Francis Frangipane wrote one simply named The Jezebel Spirit in 2001. Author John Paul Jackson put out a similar title in 2002. Florida minister named Jonas Clark has a website containing several pages devoted to stopping this evil spirit-- he even offers a CD learning course which will cost you $150 to break free from being Jezebel's eunuch. I even found a sales guide listing 10 or 20 titles on defeating this supposed "controlling" spirit and its corollary, the "passive" Ahab spirit.

There is even a website dedicated to information about this spirit: jezebelspirit.net.  To be fair, they may not subscribe to the idea that the Jezebel spirit is actually the same being as the woman Jezebel who was married to Ahab, king of Israel, as described in 1 Kings 16 through 2 Kings 9.  The way I understood the "spirit of Jezebel" when I was in Maranatha was that this was an evil spirit that possessed both Queen Jezebel and another woman called by the same name in Revelation 2:20-23, and which still influences women to manipulate, seduce and control men.

But what I found later, in the years when I went back to everything I had been taught as a Christian and searched the Bible in a reassessment of my beliefs, was that there is actually no biblical support for believing in a "Jezebel spirit" at all-- whether as the spirit of a woman in history which has become a female demon, or as a demonic spirit which possessed that woman and is still active today.  Neither the 1st - 2nd Kings stories, or the Revelation passage, say anything whatsoever about a demonic spirit.  Rather, the Kings passages describe the real activities of a real woman, and the Revelation passage uses the symbolic name "Jezebel" to refer to a woman whom the writer considered to be committing similar sins to those of the original Jezebel.

Charismatics are taught to test everything -- every experience, every teaching, every doctrine-- against the Scriptures, which are the check and balance to keep their emphasis on the supernatural and on spiritual experience from leading them away from orthodoxy.  I remember how carefully this was pressed on us when I was in Maranatha.  But the teaching on the spirit of Jezebel turned out to be only one of many areas where I found, on re-examination, that the Bible actually didn't say anything like what I'd been taught in Maranatha.

So why am I bringing this up now?

Because it appears to me that the teachings about the Jezebel spirit are continuing to escalate even past the beliefs I once had about it, to the point where Charisma News columnist Jennifer Leclaire says there is a "spiritual warfare culture" where this spirit has "rock star status" (Leclaire actually believes in these spirits herself, though she is one of the voices cautioning common sense and restraint.) This faithsite.com article considers the Jezebel spirit to be the primary spirit that attacks churches and church leaders in an attempt to control and take over, while a lesser "Absalom spirit" acts as a sort of chief lieutenant.

The spirit of Jezebel is called "a spirit of witchcraft."  This is fitting because this entire set of spiritual warfare teachings is teetering on the edge of a witch hunt.

And, as most witch hunts do, it is primed to target primarily women.

Looking more closely at the faithsite.com article linked above, here is how the Jezebel spirit is defined:

Jezebel is not just a principality or power. It is a stronghold of the second highest classification of demons listed in Ephesians Chapter 6. It is a “ruler of the darkness of this world” holed up in a strong and unbroken woman. . . Jezebel exists to undermine the authority and anointing of the man of God. 

No scriptural authority is given for the existence of the Jezebel spirit or for linking it with the "principalities and powers" described in Ephesians 6.  But though the article gives the following caveats:

All strong females are NOT Jezebels . . . All of the above is NOT to say that women should not be in positions of authority and influence in the local church. Priscilla is always mentioned alongside her husband Aquilla in the New Testament and appears to be the primary pastoral figure between the two,

it goes on to say:

Jezebel is a woman with issues in her heart concerning male authority. She has probably been wounded by a male authority figure(s) in her past, and hasn’t allowed God to heal those inner wounds. A Jezebel is often a woman who has great disrespect for her father, either because he abused her, ignored her, or because he spoiled her by never confronting her immaturities as a child, and who let her run over him. Regardless of the why, she has nursed a deep disrespect for manhood inside her heart. . .

Sometimes a Jezebel is a Jezebel because, by default, she had no example but her mother… who was a Jezebel herself… in the home.  Men ought to wear the pants in their marriages. Some have a quieter personality than the wife, but they should still assert themselves enough to clearly demarcate who is the head of the family unit. . .

A foolish woman will just take over the husband’s role because she senses he is unsure of himself and she has the stronger personality. But this is unscriptural!

This is very much in line with standard charismatic doctrine, which (unlike in most other evangelical groups) allows women to have authority in the church, but which (as in most other evangelical groups) maintains that the man has "headship" over the wife in the marriage and the home.  But notice what has happened here.  Though women are granted leadership positions in the church, if a woman is perceived in any way as "having issues concerning male authority," the next logical step is to conclude that she has a Jezebel spirit "holed up inside her."  It may be that it is not she who has issues with a man or men in authority in the church, but the male authority who has issues with her.  No matter. By default, suspicion rests on the woman, while any issues that the man or men might have are easily overlooked.

It may be that problems in this hypothetical woman's marriage are due to an overbearing husband who disrespects and belittles her, and she feels the need to resist him.  No matter.  If she has "a problem with male authority" or asserts herself so that she is perceived as not letting him "wear the pants," she is suspected of having a Jezebel spirit.  And this is where the demarcation of this supposed evil spirit as "a stronghold of the second highest classification" becomes deadly.  Here is how the church is advised to deal with a Jezebel spirit:

There can be no détente with Jezebel.
Jezebel has to be dealt with.
Jezebel does not have it within herself to change.
Jezebel will strike again.
Jezebel must be run off.
[Emphasis added.]

Once a group of church leaders decides a woman has a Jezebel spirit, there is no appeal.  There is no argument.  And there is no mercy.

Many of these websites do say that it's possible for a man also to have a Jezebel spirit.  This, of course, simply subjects men to the same Catch-22 situation that church women may find themselves in.  But the deck is already stacked for women to be far more easily and frequently colored with the Jezebel spirit brush (sadly apropos, I suppose, since the woman Jezebel in the Bible is known for "painting her face!").  A man who challenges authority may simply be considered forceful.  A woman who does so is much more likely to be viewed as under the influence or possession of a demon of Satan's first echelon.

This is even more clear when viewing the Jezebelspirit.net website.  On its Introduction page it equates the Jezebel spirit with what psychologists call "narcissistic personality disorder":

The worldly term for the spirit of Jezebel is ‘malignant narcissism’ for which there is no cure. Some traits of narcissism include: excessive self-love; firm conviction that he or she is better, smarter, or more talented than other people; becomes irritated when other people don’t automatically do what he or she wants them to do; thinks most criticisms of him or her are motivated by jealousy; regards anything short of worship to be rejection; often complains of being mistreated or misunderstood; has fantasies of doing something great or being famous, and often expects to be treated as if these fantasies had already come true.

On this page the same basic idea is reiterated:

Those who are "infected" with the Jezebel Spirit are evil, and practice evil. Their character traits are well described and categorized in the secular world who classify these people as Narcissists or Psychopaths for whom there is no healing treatment or cure. [Emphasis in original]

Based on this, the website then warns:

When it comes to Jezebel, you can forget about praying for her to come to truth and repentance. You will be wasting your precious time. Also, you must never sympathize with her. You must be 100% against her, and stop having hopes for her recovery and well-being! She is not your sister or brother in the Lord. She is living in the strength of demonic soul power, absolutely sold out to doing evil, and completely out of the will of God and obedience to God. She is her own master, and ultimately she serves Satan. Yes, you are dealing with a human being behind the Jezebel spirit, but don’t be weak. This is a pure spiritual battle. You might ask: “Isn’t she just a poor deceived person herself?” Yes, she is deceived, but don’t you also be deceived to have any weakness for this person. If you love the person, cut soul ties immediately, and surrender her completely to God, for Him to determine her destiny. Remember again the book of Revelation where God gives her time to repent, but she refuses to do so. Do not try to save her, or you will go down with her. You need to alienate yourself completely, and have no patience and tolerance for her actions.

All these seemingly controversial points for a typical Christian mindset need to be dealt with before you are ready to fight Jezebel. Anything less than these attitudes will cause you to doubt, and fall prey to her. [Emphasis in original] 

Though there is truth in the idea that a person with narcissistic personality disorder cannot be trusted, and that churches should be aware of this disorder, recognize the traits and warning signs, and not let such a person destroy their congregations, the equation of this disorder with the Jezebel spirit is dangerous.  Narcissistic personality disorder is in fact quite rare.  False identification of church members as having this disorder and then shunning them as pure evil, is a real possibility.  This is particularly true since readers are encouraged to see the influence of the Jezebel spirit everywhere:

The Spirit of Jezebel is a dominating factor over the entire earth today. Jezebel hovers over the Television and Film Industry, causing most TV shows to portray a demonic, twisted, and perverted outlook on life. It cleverly teaches people to strive for material wealth, monetary success, and anything that has to do with instant gratification. . . The Jezebel Spirit is found in the church. Spirits like jealously, controlling submit-to-me pastoring, greed, possessive leadership, erroneous doctrine, focus on outward appearance, and self-promoting ambition all derive from the Spirit of Jezebel. . . The Spirit of Jezebel manifests in politics through narcissistic leadership, officials who love power and choose to steer a nation away from God through immoral legislation. The media is full of corruption, greed, desire for power, hunger for approval and attention, lies and deception, overindulgence, and money-hunger.

And then, even though none of these things are exclusive or even primarily found in women-- even though recognized medical websites like the Mayo Clinic state that narcissistic personality disorder affects more men than women, Jezebelspirit.net equates the Jezebel spirit almost exclusively with women:

The reason we believe the Jezebel spirit only pertains to women is because of the fact that men have been given natural authority from God, it’s not something they would need to fight to get, they already have it! Women, on the other hand, have not been given that same authority, and they would need tools to try to take that position of leadership that the man has. This is where the Jezebel spirit comes in. A demon will come to a woman presenting different tools she can use to regain power over the man. These tools are, among many others: manipulation, control, domination and seduction. For a wounded or scorned woman, these tools come as a temptation she cannot resist, and she grabs them, and starts using them. This is the moment she opens the door to become possessed by the demonic spirit that promises to provide her with everything she needs to accomplish her goal. She may or may not even be aware of what a devastating spirit she has just welcomed into her life. . .

At the other hand, when a man seems to be using some of the same tools as the Jezebel woman does, it is usually not a Jezebel spirit, but a power hungry spirit that comes from being an extremely wounded individual who has most likely been abused in one way or another, and need to control and manipulate his circumstances out of fear of being hurt again.

It is interesting how the website equates "controlling, submit-to-me pastorship" with the Jezebel spirit-- even though even in charismatic churches which allow women some church leadership, the pastorate is still overwhelmingly male! -- and then says that a man who acts like this probably has only a "power hungry spirit" that comes from being hurt and abused (the name seems to indicate that this is a spirit much lower on the totem pole and thus less dangerous than the Jezebel one).  The stage is set for men in the church to be treated with far more sympathy and less fear, even if the men are controlling or manipulative.

The website also uses the threat of the Jezebel spirit to keep women in a subordinate place within marriage:

One of the saddest things is the Jezebel Spirit's influence in Christian and non-Christian marriages, and the lack of understanding and effective arrest of these issues when they appear. . . Even if the woman possessed by the Jezebel Spirit is married, it will never be a marriage where she will acknowledge her God-given role in the marriage. She will have an attitude of wanting to be equal to the man in all matters — even try to prove to be a better leader than the husband. 

One of the main purposes of this evil spirit of Jezebel is to have the wives in the marriage take over the spiritual headship from their husbands, teaching and controlling them, and in doing so, reversing God’s order for marriage. Unless the husband fights his wife for supremacy, he will ultimately end up assuming the second place in the marriage.

Thus a marriage in which the man and woman desire to share authority equally is turned into a demonically influenced marriage controlled by the spirit of Jezebel.

So what we have here, in terms of spiritual abuse, is the makings of a perfect storm.

Here are some of Jezebelspirit.net's primary identifying marks of a person under the Jezebel spirit:

- Believes [themselves] to be right. Wants to win. Will argue till you drop.
- Has a blame/guilt mindset: Everything comes down to who is right and who is wrong.
- Is unwilling to compromise on priorities: Everything has to go the way they have planned it.
- Is strongly defensive when approached for criticism and correction, even guidance.

When ordinary human traits such as defensiveness under accusation become markers of demonic activity, it becomes impossible for an ordinary church member to deny she has one of these spirits, as denial would be perceived as one of the demon's tactics.  Accusation and conviction can easily become the same thing. And the worst thing is that it becomes easy to declare that simple disagreement that there is such a thing as a Jezebel spirit, is actually evidence of being under the influence of the Jezebel spirit.  This makes it impossible to engage in any sort of rational conversation about the factuality or even the scripturality of these claims.

Even when my husband and I were young charismatic Christians, the criteria for identifying a Jezebel spirit were vague and self-contradictory.  This is why a young man in Maranatha, years ago, could blithely decide that a woman he saw on television was possessed by a Jezebel spirit, simply because she sat at a desk where he was used to seeing a man sit, and spoke in a way he was used to hearing a man speak.

But now things have progressed even beyond that.  And it's far too late to nip this teaching in the bud; it came to full flower with the advent of the Internet and is now spreading its pollen on the wind.

My fellow Christians, my charismatic brothers and sisters, please: this sort of thing has to stop.  For the sake of innocent Christian women who sit beside you in church, combat this teaching!  Examine the passages in 1st and 2nd Kings and Revelation for yourselves, and search for any indication that they are talking about an evil spirit ranking first in Satan's army.  Examine the spiritual warfare passages such as Ephesians 6, and see if they give any warning of a Jezebel spirit, or of any spirit to beware of in one of the sexes over the other.

You won't find it.

It's extremely likely that even now, Christian women who do not have narcissistic personality disorder are being accused of having this spirit and are being disciplined or shunned by their churches, with no possibility of self-defense, simply because they have strong personalities or serious goals outside the home. A tendency to bossiness is sometimes a weakness of the stronger personality types, and though it's a flaw in both sexes, it should not be mistaken for demonic influence when exhibited by a woman.

This is not what the family of God should be involved in. Ephesians 3:10 says that the wisdom of God made known through the church is "manifold" -- meaning multi-faceted, varied and diverse. Christians, male and female alike, have a variety of personality types, gifts and talents.  Let's celebrate them and not be afraid of them just because they don't fit gender stereotypes.

We can be careful of the possibility of mental disorders within our midst without setting ourselves up for witch hunts.

What About this "Submission" Thing?

Today I'm writing a contribution to Rachel Held Evans' Synchroblog on Submission in the Household of God.  The word "submit" or "submission" is defined by the Free Online Dictionary as "To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another."  In current parlance it carries some fairly negative connotations, largely coming from animal behavior science; it's not hard to picture a dog rolling onto its back to expose its belly.  But the idea of doglike subservience or fawning slavishness really isn't part of the meaning of the word as Christians use it-- in Christian jargon, the range of meaning of the word goes from "voluntarily yielding to another person" to "accepting the authority structures God has ordained."

The main issue evangelical Christians tend to argue over is whether, and to what extent, God has set up hierarchies of authority, particularly in the areas of marriage and church leadership.  The specific issue which Rachel Held Evans' synchroblog is focusing on is the submission of wives to husbands-- whether it is simply a part of "mutual submission" (voluntary yielding to one another) or whether submission is the wife's duty as the subordinate under the authority ("headship") of her husband.

As I'm sure I've made pretty clear by this point in my blogging career, I (like Rachel Held Evans) do not believe in hierarchy in marriage or in male headship.  So I'm going to talk about submission in the other sense-- the sense of voluntary yielding.  If submission is what all Christians are called to do towards one another (Eph. 5:21), it can't ultimately be about authority, because that would mean each of us is in authority over the other, which is nonsensical.

And yet wifely submission as discussed in the Bible does seem to appear in the context of authority and subordination.  Why is that?

Ms. Evans accurately describes the three main New Testament passages on wifely submission (located in Ephesians chapters 5-6, Colossians chapters 3-4 and 1 Peter chapters 2-3) as a reworking of the Aristotelian household codes, which were well-known to the original New Testament audiences. I have addressed the household codes earlier on my blog as follows:

What we may not understand, reading this from our own cultural understanding, is that the original Greco-Roman audience would already have been very familiar with household codes. Household codes were very common at the time, and were based on the first household code of its kind, set forth by Arisotle in the 4th century BC. . .

The code was expressed in terms of the rulership of the male head of household. Slaves, females and children were spoken of only in terms of being ruled; they were not addressed personally. The pater familias himself was Aristotle’s intended audience, and the pater familias was the intended audience of later Greek and Roman household codes based on Aristotle‘s originals. Men were told how to manage their wives, children, slaves and wealth for the good of society. Slaves, women and children were simply to be ruled. . .

In short, what Paul is really doing is standing the Aristotelian household codes on their heads. He is deliberately undermining the authority structure where the pater familias ruled all. . . 

Paul does not seek to overthrow the authority structures of the culture in which the Ephesian church found itself. But what he does do is teach those in the family of God, a new way of relating to one another “in Christ.” The expected rule of the pater familias over his wife, children and slaves is reset within a paradigm of mutual submission and is re-focused on Christlike humility, love and nurturing rather than control, and on laying down his life rather than taking charge. God’s family is a new kind of family in which we are all brothers and sisters. The highest in society must change the way they relate to the lowest, while the lowest must not take advantage of their new status and disrespect those who are socially higher. All are to voluntarily yield and defer to one another as servants, just as Jesus also said in John 13:12-14.

Paul, Peter and other New Testament authors wrote what they did according to the Christian understanding of two kingdoms (or families): the kingdom of the world and the kingdom (or family) of God. This really needs to be kept at the top of one's mind when reading any New Testament writings. As I discussed in another blog post a while back:

When Jesus preached the kingdom, He was making a radical political statement in His day that God is king and not Caesar. But He also made it clear (by refusing to let them crown Him king, among other things) that He had not come to simply replace one earthly kingdom with another. 

N.T. Wright's book Simply Jesus puts it this way:

"Now there is a completely different way to live, a way of love and reconciliation and healing and hope. It's a way nobody's ever tried before, a way that is as unthinkable to most human beings and societies as-- well, as resurrection itself. Precisely. That's the point. Welcome to Jesus's new world. . . . 

The resurrection of Jesus doesn't mean, 'It's all right. We're going to heaven now.' No, the life of heaven has been born on this earth. . . God is now in charge, on earth as in heaven. And God's 'being-in-charge' is focused on Jesus himself being king and Lord." 

The kingdom of God is about God reigning on earth, in and through the Person of Jesus Christ. But Christ doesn't reign the way human kings reign, or even the way democratically elected political leaders reign-- through making and enforcing laws. . .

The kingdom is [instead] something that happens on the inside of human beings when they come into contact with God, which then begins to make a difference in the world outside.

Following Jesus, He told His followers, is about being servants, not rulers (Matt. 23:11). It's about taking up a cross (Luke 9:23), about laying down your life-- not about acquiring power to make other people do things. 

So when we take, for example, Paul's words to husbands/wives, masters/slaves and fathers/children in Ephesians 5-6, I think he is actually doing two things: first, describing the completely different way Christians were to relate to one another as God's family, and second, giving advice for how to still function as subjects of the kingdom of the world. What Paul was trying to do was show how, while still living in the hierarchy-based kingdom of the world (as Christians had no choice but to do), Christians could act Christlike (i.e., lowly of heart, placing others above themselves) and thus behave as citizens of the non-hierarchical kingdom of God-- whether they were in worldly-kingdom positions of power, or whether they were in worldly-kingdom positions of subordination.

In this way of looking at things, the upside-down kingdom that is the kingdom of God does speak to and challenge worldly hierarchy and social power-- but not by trying to subvert or overthrow them, or even to "Christianize" them. Rather, it is by showing that this earthly kingdom is of no eternal value. In Paul's first-century world, husbands had power and wives didn't. Paul didn't tell Christian husbands or wives to overthrow or subvert those earthly structures, but he did tell them that ultimately, that wasn't where their true citizenship lay. Christian husbands were to act like Christ in laying down power and position within their own relationships with their Christian wives. Christian wives were to act like Christ in not trying to seize power or position in the worldly system, but being submissive to their own Christian husbands.

This is because the kingdom of God simply isn't about hierarchy, and it was the kingdom of God that mattered in Paul's eyes.  And (then as now) when we work to spread that kingdom, it influences the world as well.

Therefore, what I think Christians are doing when they teach male headship, is to impose the mindset of the kingdom of the world onto kingdom-of-God relationships, mistakenly thinking that the worldly hierarchy Paul had to help his readers function within, is actually a divine hierarchy instituted by God, to be carried out in God's kingdom.  But this idea of divine hierarchy is, I believe, part of a Greek concept known as the Great Chain of Being which somehow got grafted into Christian thought during the early centuries after Christ.  Christ Himself, in speaking to His disciples about not seeking authority over one another (Matthew 18:1-3), describes coming into the kingdom of God as "becoming like a little child" -- that is, laying aside social status, authority and power (which children had none of) in order to become the "servant of all" (Matthew 20:25-27).

So-- in the  non-hierarchical family that is the kingdom of God, what does submission look like?

Submission, I think, means doing what the other person wants and needs, regardless of whether it would be your own choice or desire.  It means yielding or giving in to the other's wishes or plans.  It means deferring to the other's knowledge on a subject, and not insisting on being right or having your own way.

Submission looks like Jesus letting a woman who wasn't exactly known for her pure reputation, weep on His feet and wipe her tears with her hair, even though it might have been embarrassing to Him personally. Luke 7:36-50.

Submission looks like Peter letting Jesus dress like a slave and wash his feet.  Submission also looks like Jesus doing the washing.

Submission looks like my husband when the children were young, cheerfully waving goodbye as I went off to a book club meeting, and then getting the children ready for bed and tucking them in.

Submission looks like me letting my husband decide on the route when we're traveling, and lead the way when we're walking-- because I'm that lady who can't find her way out of a paper bag.

Submission also looks like when I saw how exhausted my husband was after giving a major presentation at the end of his time at college, and I stepped up to take the lead and make a decision about where we were going to eat-- because the last thing he needed or wanted to do right then was to have to make a decision about anything.

Yes-- submission often looks like following, but sometimes it actually looks like leading.  Many times it looks like serving.  But there are times when it looks like letting someone else serve you.

That's why it bothers me when some Christians call an act of yielding and service "submission" when a woman does it, and "leadership" or "headship" when a man does it.  Wayne Grudem, a well-known advocate of male headship, is quoted here as talking about how he decided to go along with his wife's desire to move to Arizona, because it would be best for her health.  He calls his decision "loving, humble headship."  But if the positions were reversed, and it had been his wife deciding to go along with a move to Arizona for his health, I'm certain Dr. Grudem would have called that "submission."

For another example, if a headship-believing couple were to find themselves in a situation where the wife's expertise in a particular area was greater than her husband's, and he were to say, ‘She knows more than me about this, so I’m choosing her way’ — when he did that, it would be called "leadership." "He’s such a good leader, he appreciates his wife’s expertise," this mindset says.  But if the husband were the one with greater expertise, and the wife chose to listen to him– that would be called "submission." "She’s such a good, submissive wife, she yields to her husband."

But in both these examples, we are talking about the same action, the same behavior: one spouse voluntarily decides to defer and give in to the wishes or needs or knowledge of the other; to do what the other wants, regardless of whether it would be their own first choice.

It's all submission, folks.

And it's all part of what Ephesians 5:21 is talking about:  "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." 

 We don't have to return to first-century power structures in order to follow the Bible's teachings. The important thing is learning which is which.

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Note: There is a balance to submission, even when it's mutual.  The principal of Christian self-stewardship says we are also to take care of ourselves out of respect for our own value as God's creation.  I'll be writing more about this in the near future. 

Sovereign Grace Ministries and Abuse: Time to Speak Out

For some time I've been watching with a heavy heart the progress of the lawsuit initially filed against Sovereign Grace Ministries in October 2012.  The original news articles have long since been archived, but the evangelical watchdog blog site The Wartburg Watch still has quotes from those early news reports.  In January of this year an amended lawsuit was filed.  The basic allegations were that various pastoral leaders of SGM covered up members' allegations of child abuse and sexual molestation from the 1980s on.

The current news is that due to statute of limitations issues, it has been ruled that most of the victims have brought their lawsuit too late, and the case has been dismissed.  What saddens me is that while this is not because any of the allegations have even been addressed (and some of the defendants will undoubtedly bring a new suit), supporters of SGM's leader Charles Mahaney have chosen this time to voice their support in a way that belittles the stories of the accusers and vilifies the victims. While ostensibly acknowledging that "There is no excuse, at any time or in any place or for any reason, for the use of children for sexual pleasure," the article states "we are friends with C.J [Mahaney]," and goes on to say:

He has also been the object of libel and even a Javert-like obsession by some. One of the so-called discernment blogs—often trafficking more in speculation and gossip than edifying discernment—reprinted a comment from a woman who issued this ominous wish, "I hope [this lawsuit] ruins the entire organization [of SGM] and every single perpetrator and co-conspirator financially, mentally and physically."

The problem with this quote is that it is not from some outside voice passing judgment on a "discernment blog" (which apparently means a blog set up to exercise "spiritual discernment" as to the orthodoxy of other ministries; this term is frequently used as a pejorative).  The Wartburg Watch has located the source of the original quote, and it is from a woman who was raped during an SGM home-group meeting at the age of 13.  It does not come from a discernment blog at all, but from a survivors' blog, meant to be a safe place for former SGM members to tell their stories.  For Mahaney's friends on the Gospel Coalition blog to quote this in the manner they quote it, conveys the message that they consider speaking against their friends' ministry, even if it comes out of pain, to be a more important issue than a victim's response to her rape.

However you slice it, this is outrageous.  If they didn't know where the quote came from, they shouldn't have quoted it.  If they did know-- then they have just treated a woman like garbage in order to make their powerful friend's ministry look good.

So I have to speak out too.

To the writers of the Gospel Coalition's message: look.  I recognize how hard it is to navigate the waters when someone you consider a friend has been accused of something like this.  But the fact remains that by coming out strongly on the side of the one with pastoral power at this point in the proceedings, you are contributing (whatever your protests to the contrary) to the re-victimization of the victims and the upholding of the power structures that made SGM ripe for these sorts of criminal abuses in the first place.

There are simply too many allegations by too many disparate people, for this to be merely a vindictive false attack.  And C. J. Mahaney, as the founder and leader of SGM, simply cannot hold himself aloof and claim ignorance.  The authoritarian structures that were set up and/or maintained by him directly caused an environment where abuse was aided and abetted-- and he had the power to prevent it, or at the very least stop it in its tracks.  He is the one who created the environment where leaders were given blanket endorsement and protection, while the people at the bottom were silenced.  Whether he likes it or not, by setting authority up as unassailable and himself up as the top authority, he made himself responsible for the behavior of his sub-leaders and well-being of his lowliest followers.  And you, as his friends, ought to have told him so.

As I have shared elsewhere on my blog, Sovereign Grace Ministries is one of the successors to the Shepherding Movement in which I spent my college years as part of Maranatha Campus Ministries.  I know very well the structures that uphold those in power while viewing with suspicion and disapproval anyone who dares speak against or even question them.

Virginia Knowles at Watch the Shepherd a former member of SGM, concurs.  She writes:

Unfortunately, this is not just a problem in SGM, but in a host of other religious organizations. It is the culture of shame and silence -- and women, especially young ones, are the most vulnerable to both sexual abuse and domestic violence. . . In both this lawsuit and my extensive research on abuse of authority (especially gender-based) these are some of the pastoral sentiments I've heard about...

"We're all sinners. Yes, he might have hurt you, but think of how you have sinned. You have no right to complain." (I call this phenomena "psychological socialism" and some day I will write more extensively about it.)
"He said he was sorry. You need to meet with him face to face so he can apologize. Be reconciled with your brother in Christ!"
"He has apologized to you! He's really sincere! Now you can forgive and forget! You must not gossip or slander him by telling anyone else about it. If you tarnish his reputation, he'll never be able to get on with his life, keep a job, continue his ministry, and provide for his wife and children."
"Counseling? Sure, come right into my office. Oh, you mean from professional counselors? Don't bother. They'll only give you ungodly psychobabble and lead you astray."
"Call the police? No way! Are you crazy? We don't need to bring another believer before the law. This is something the church should handle, not the worldly and godless secular government system. He just needs to see the light and repent. Jesus is enough."
"Oh, you don't want to tell anyone that anything has happened at this church! What sort of reputation will that give to our ministry -- and to God? We must protect our gospel witness!"
"You are a woman. A woman is not supposed to teach or have authority over men, but to quietly support and follow them. How dare you usurp my authority and question how I run my church [or this family]?" [edited for brevity, but you get the point.]

Hannah at Wine and Marble lived the SGM life for 10 years.  She explains how this climate is created in this kind of organization:

You stop thinking critically, because questioning things is ever-so-subtly frowned upon. It’s welcomed, objectively, but you feel slight displeasure or get sidelined because of suddenly busy schedules (because. . . they have slowly, subtly made you dependent on their approval for your confidence in your discernment and spiritual maturity). . .

You have the perfect storm for socially quick, manipulative personalities to rise quickly in the ranks of the church leadership, for the depressed and hurting to beat themselves up for their sins and keep accepting any critiques of their attitudes or actions, and the insecure to always, always second-guess their own instincts and instead choose to follow the advice and corrective teachings of those in authority over them.

It’s not brainwashing, but it’s a social immersion into a culture where you lose your sense of self, your boundaries, your privacy, and your ability to reason independently in a slow fade to submissive SGM church member, fiercely loyal to the great people and genuine culture of faith there.

It’s insane.

And so, in that world, your child tells you that so-and-so at care group touched their private parts. You are furious. You confront this person, you tell your care group leader. Your care group leader tells you that he’s going to bring this up with your pastor and get back to you (because no one thinks to call the cops yet), and the pastor wants to meet with you (maybe you’ve never had any one-on-one time with your pastor before, so you feel affirmed and like he’s taking it seriously)…and then you’re angry in the meeting toward your child’s molester, and you get confronted about your anger, and, and, and…

Suddenly, the SGM sin-confrontation system has kicked into high gear, and the child abuse has take a back seat (because, it’s only on the child’s word, and children are so sinful and need to be trained to love Jesus and not walk in their flesh)…

And it never gets reported. And your child is made to hug his/her abuser. And the abuser is seen as repentant and restored, and you think, well, maybe it’ll be okay. That process of rooting out sin is really thorough. And they have so much accountability–from their accountability partner and their care group leader and from the pastor.

And nothing is done about it.

So what should have been done about it?

Ministry leaders that really cared about their congregations should have been the first to investigate the first rumor of the sexual or physical abuse of children.  SGM's leaders did not.  If a reason was found to suspect a church leader of such a crime, the police ought to have been immediately brought in.  If a church leader was found to have committed such an offense, he ought to have been permanently removed from ministry and encouraged to show repentance by serving his time as a model prisoner.  SGM did none of these things.

When a lawsuit was brought against SGM, they should have responded in open shame and horror, with the top leaders offering to step down until the investigation was complete and the perpetrators properly dealt with in the courts.   Instead, SGM instructed its lawers to assert a First Amendment "clergy-congregant confidentiality" defense.  But this was not about a minister's right to keep secrets of private sins confessed privately.  This is about the cover-up by ministers of accusations brought by victims of heinous crimes.  

And the last thing that should ever have happened was for these victims-- some as young as two and three years old-- to be forced to verbally forgive their abusers face-to-face.

Zach L. Hoag's Blog calls it "A False Gospel of Reconcilation": 

The most grotesque allegations to come out of this lawsuit have to do with the culture of “gospel-centered reconciliation” in this movement, where victims of abuse – often, children – were simply told to “forgive” and “reconcile” with their adult church member/leader abusers. I mean, it’s better than you deserve, right? So get over it. And smack dab in the center of this demonic-gospel culture were leaders who rise to levels of immense influence over their cruelly “humbled” people, all the while claiming to be humble themselves. . . 

And this false gospel of reconciliation doesn’t stop here. It is not only reserved for churches fraught with sex abuse scandals. It rears its ugly head in all kinds of conservative evangelical circles, taking the similar shape of pain-denying theologies that counsel victims to get over it and get back together with those who harmed them. [Emphasis in original.]

Hoag compares this with the true reconciliation that Jesus preached:

The goal toward which the resurrected Jesus is working in the world right now is not some imaginary peace where people “reconcile” in name only while the abuse is never stopped and the wrong never righted. No, this is instead a total bending of the violent and unjust world back toward God’s shalom, until it is completely put to rights on the final day. . . And reconciliation, rightly lived as part of God’s cosmic work to restore all things, always subverts the empire of unjust power and control. It messes with thrones and powers and rulers and authorities. It takes them to task. [Emphasis in original.]

Now, unlike Zach Hoag, I don't think this is really about whether the group is Calvinist or not.  As I have said elsewhere on my blog, I think Calvinism can sometimes lead to too great a focus on authority in the church, but not always-- nor is it always Calvinism that falls into this mentality.  Maranatha Campus Ministries was basically Arminian, and yet they created an environment where abuse (not, as far as I know, physical or sexual abuse, but definitely spiritual abuse) was nurtured and grew.  On the other hand, Pastor Wade Burleson of Istoria Ministries is Calvinist, and yet I am certain nothing like this could ever happen in his church.  Here, in Burleson's own words, is why:

Jesus said that real leaders are servants, not masters. . . Let me be clear. Those kind of pastors - pastors that advocate an authoritarianism inherent in the pulpit, that stifle any and all dissent from the members of their congregations, that humiliate and denigrate the members who for the sake of conscience ask questions - could very well be considered great expositors of the Word of God and doctrinally orthodox. Yet those pastors display a character that is the antithesis of the character of Christ, an ironhandedness that is the opposite of genuine grace, and a disposition that should cause their congregations to realize that their pastors are but one step away from falling over the precipice of moral failure in terms of their church ministries or personal lives.

I think Burleson's diagnosis is absolutely correct.  It is authoritarianism that creates distance between a church leader and a congregation, so that members who bring complaints are viewed with suspicion while those with power are held to be above reproach.  It is this that creates a climate where power can corrupt, and absolute power can corrupt absolutely.

But the Bible actually teaches this:

Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care. . . not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. (1 Peter 5:2-3, emphasis added.)

And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.  (Ephesians 5:11.)

So what is the right thing to do when you are a pastoral leader in a position of power and authority, and a friend who is also in a position of power and authority becomes the subject of multiple allegations of abuse by his ministry and cover-up by himself?  

Ultimately, it isn't being a good friend to close your eyes to his wrongdoings.  And no matter how close of friends two or more powerful Christian leaders are, their first responsibility as leaders must be to care for the most vulnerable members of their flocks.  The leaders of the Gospel Coalition simply cannot refuse to listen to what biblical shorthand calls "the widow and orphan" when they come pleading for justice. (Isaiah 1:17, James 1:27.)

There's still time to do the right thing.  I hope these Christian leaders decide to do it.