Cokhavim commented:
“RMG wrote: ‘It is true that God did not treat patriarchal culture as intrinsically evil—as he did, say, idolatry. God regarded the patriarchy (and concomitant polygamy) of ancient Israel as simply the culture of the time. Although patriarchy was not the offense to God’s holiness that idolatry was, this is no reason to conclude that it was entirely pleasing to him.’
"I'm troubled by this. Here's my feeble attempt to explain why: Patriarchy is the system whereby men take what is not rightfully theirs (exclusive authority), and in many cases women wrongfully give up what God has given and charged them to wield (authority). The first case is theft, and the second case is disobedience. Both involve the same disregard to God's authority as idolatry, and so are sinful and inherently evil. So why doesn't God condemn patriarchy like he condemned idolatry? Worse than that, why does God spend so much time on, for instance, mould and mildew instead of condemning patriarchy? Patriarchy was far more devastating to the Israelites and the entire history of the human race than mould and mildew. So I contend: Patriarchy is evil. Why doesn't God explicitly condemn it?”
Authority and Idolatry
“In many cases women wrongfully give up what God has given and charged them to wield (authority).”
Gifted women did wield authority in the Old Testament. There was no prohibition of women teaching, prophesying, or leading. It happened rarely, largely because the patriarchal culture did not often offer such opportunity for women. Besides, “women’s work” could be rather rugged and time consuming in ancient agrarian societies, which would leave little time for public exploits. Also, women were not utterly without control of their lives, little ones, or households. Notice that when Jacob wanted to leave Laban, he first got the O.K. from his wives Leah and Rachel.
Patriarchy involves “the same disregard to God’s authority as idolatry.”
Both men and women were under God’s authority in ancient Israel. Moreover, idolatry is about God’s holiness, not God’s authority.
I have been reading the Pentateuch for awhile now, and I find it striking that God seems to be much more concerned to impress upon Israel his holiness than his power and authority. He exercises the latter as he deems necessary, but his instruction and communication to Israel (via Moses) is all about how Yahweh is holy and so his people must also be holy (in some way, to some degree). Idolatry is a direct affront to the unique and total holiness of God. Patriarchy is not.
God's top priority for his people was that they keep from idols and know that God is holy.
“Why does God spend so much time on, for instance, mould and mildew instead of condemning patriarchy? Patriarchy was far more devastating to the Israelites and the entire history of the human race than mould and mildew.”
Yes, Old Testament law does often seem to be an odd jumble of the petty and the profound. The moral law directly applies to all God’s people for all time. The ceremonial or cultic law was applicable only to the social practices of Israel, which included how to deal with mold and mildew. Much of this had to do with insuring health standards for the vast companies of Israelites. But these picayune requirements also illustrate in very concrete, everyday terms the concept of distinguishing between the clean and the unclean, or, more precisely, the holy and the unholy. It was a sort of object lesson for the Israelites. Again we see God’s powerful insistence on having his people respect and worship the Holy.
Patriarchy in Ancient Times
The Israelites had a very difficult time accepting, obeying, and worshiping a God that was never to be represented in tangible, concrete form. This was their stumbling block, because it was contrary to all the other cultures and religions of the time. Yet God insisted on this huge paradigm shift for his people, because it was essential and intrinsic to the religion of Yahweh. But what do you suppose would have happened if God had also insisted on the Israelites being organized into an egalitarian social system? They could at least understand the concept of having to worship their God (even if one could not “see” him). But the culture of patriarchy was thoroughly entrenched in ancient times. They could not have grasped and adapted to a social system as alien to them as egalitarianism would have been. Of course, this is merely a practical consideration. So let us move on to more theological considerations.
It Was Not Always Thus
God did not create patriarchy. This was not God’s original plan for humanity. The fall was a cataclysmic event that twisted and turned God’s beautiful creation into its antithesis, in many ways. But let’s not forget that in the new covenant in Christ, God has eliminated patriarchy from the company of his redeemed. New creation realities override Old Testament Law.
Between the Garden of Eden and the New Creation in Christ, God tolerated patriarchy (and the polygamy that accompanied it) as he tolerated many things that have developed from the fall. But God did not create patriarchy from the beginning. It came upon the man and woman only after they fell into disobedience and sin. Note the marked contrast between Genesis 2:24 and Genesis 3:16.
Not Like the Law of the PC World Today
Let us not confuse historical-cultural patriarchy with the historically novel PC gender doctrine that is being propounded today. Unlike the social structures of traditional patriarchy, the PC view: 1) renounces the culture of the day, 2) defines male authority as spiritual authority, 3) explicitly prohibits women from serving God according to whatever their ability and calling may be, 4) claims patriarchy is mandated by God and grounded in pre-fall creation, 5) is not a social system but a religious doctrine.
Every one of these five points issues from a perspective antithetical to that of the patriarchy of ancient Israel, which: 1) was just following along with the only social system known in the ancient world, 2) saw male rule largely in terms of inheritance law and social leadership, which necessarily included religious leadership since Israel was a religious society (theocracy), 3) had no law prohibiting women from exercising their prophetic or leadership gifts, 4) offered no rationale for patriarchy as God’s original creation order, 5) was a social system that was accepted by all societies of the time; it was not a religious doctrine that required one’s allegiance on pain of violating God’s express command.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Question of Consistency: Part 1
It appears that the major organizations promoting the patriarchal-complementarian (PC) view—namely, Focus on the Family, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood—either support Sarah Palin unequivocally or, at least, allow that voting for her would not necessarily violate Scripture. However, a number of PC voices have arisen in protest against a woman serving in any position that would have her exercising authority over men. The dissenters base their view on what they see as a universal biblical principle of exclusively male authority throughout all of God’s creation, which God established at his creation of humanity. They regard the patriarchal practices of the Old Testament—along with the New Testament proof texts—as a clear indication of God’s mandate for male rule in all things. They see the PC view that mandates exclusively male rule only in the church and in marriage to be inconsistent with clear biblical teaching.
One such dissenter speaks of this view as a “complementarian compromise,” and of certain representatives of CBMW and SBC as “semi-complementarians.” He defines complementarians as “those who believe that men and women have different but complementary roles according to the revealed will of God.” Given that this dispute seems to be about the “true” meaning of gender “complementarity,” I would like to begin by considering this fellow’s definition of such. Besides co-opting this view as the only possible account of biblical truth, he also invokes the standard euphemism of “different but complementary roles.” This phrase—taken literally, apart from the implicit coding of the language—is also true of biblical equality (BE). The PC view is not rightly distinguished from the BE view merely by its affirmation of different but complementary roles, because biblical egalitarians also recognize and affirm different yet complementary roles for women and men.
Difference in gender roles can be universally true or only generally true. The universally different roles of men and women are (a) the different reproductive functions of male and female, and (b) the creationally ordained pattern of marriage, whereby a man marries a woman and a woman marries a man for as long as they both shall live. This may seem overly obvious and thus unimportant; but the point is that these are nonetheless “roles,” which are affirmed by the BE view of gender. In our sexually confused culture, these “obvious” roles are being abrogated right and left, what with reproduction occurring in various inventive ways and, of course, the notion of marriage expanding into assorted arrangements other than one man and one woman for one lifetime.
Most of us have also noticed gender differences that obtain generally but not universally. For example, women tend to be more inclined than men to nurture young children at home. In addition, men and women typically exhibit different communication styles (women tend to process ideas in a more holistic and relational fashion, are more readily engaged in personal conversations, etc.). Also, there is a general difference between conceptual processing in women and men (women tend to have a more integrative way of thinking, while men seem more inclined to focus on single issues). Differences such as these are truly complementary, and demonstrate why it is usually beneficial to have both men and women working together in various projects, churches, and organizations, according to each one’s gifts and callings.
However, it is not possible to ascertain which of these general differences between men and women may have been established by God in the original act of creation, and which have developed as a result of the fall. PC advocates of “Mars and Venus” views of gender difference routinely confuse “what is” with “what originally was.” For example, the male inclination to pursue a woman and then, after the conquest, to hunt for someone new, has seemed so ingrained to so many that it is sometimes viewed as “the way God made men to be.” But this much, at least, we know is untrue. The way God set things up with regard to romance and marriage is succinctly but certainly set forth in Genesis 2:24.
Similarly, it is impossible to decipher which generally apparent gender differences are due to nature and which are due to nurture, or what mixture of nature and nurture there may be in these generalizable differences. Because of the powerful and pervasive influence of environment on human behavior, innate gender differences cannot be isolated and then manipulated and controlled in scientific experimentation. Yet it is evident that in every culture there are general behavioral differences between women and men, some of which seem to be more or less consistent across culture; but even this does not necessarily show these differences to be ordained by God. Between us and God’s creation there stands the fall, by which the world suffered significant disruption of God’s original desire for human life. Nonetheless, wherever there are generally consistent differences in expertise or inclination between women and men, there is gender complementarity.
Although the points of difference between men and women can vary from time to time and culture to culture, the consistency of complementarity (in the true sense!) is indicative of God’s creationally ordained differentiation of male and female humanity. This we can know to be God’s design! What is not warranted from either nature or Scripture is a flat-footed stance on what men and women ought and ought not do in terms of ministry and vocation in order to be truly feminine or truly masculine in accordance with what God “clearly” ordained at creation.
This issue of nurture and nature—or, more to the point, culture and creation—bears on the question of mandating unilateral male authority on the basis of the patriarchy of Old Testament culture and social structures. Those who consider themselves fully complementarian invoke the universal expectation of male rule in ancient Israel as proof that God explicitly commands civil leaders to be men.
Yet the idea that we can derive God’s ideal for human culture and behavior from a world in which sin is imbedded in every social structure is naïve at best. The fact that God did not directly rebuke patriarchal culture, but rather worked within it, does not indicate that these structures were his ideal for human culture. No, God’s ideal culture would have to be discerned from pre-fall culture—of which we have little information (although we do have God’s pre-fall account of marriage in Genesis 2:24, which exactly reverses patriarchal culture).
In patriarchal culture, a woman leaves her parents’ home and is taken into the extended family of her husband. She becomes a part of her husband’s family, under the rule of her husband and the family patriarch (typically her husband’s father). But in Genesis 2, after God created the woman and before the man and woman fell into sin, God decreed a very different picture of marriage: the oneness between woman and man would come from the man leaving his own family and cleaving to his wife. The two would then become one unit, one flesh.
It is also telling that nowhere in the OT is male rule specifically mandated. It is simply assumed, given the culture of the times. In ancient agrarian societies, patriarchy was the only game in town. This was the culture of all societies, including the heathen nations.
Because God is sovereign, he orders and directs all that occurs in this world. However, this does not entail that everything that occurs is in accordance with God’s specific design and perfect pleasure for his people. This is a fallen world, and sin pervades every aspect of human social structures this side of Eden. We cannot conclude that patriarchy was ordained by God simply because it was there.
It is true that God did not treat patriarchal culture as intrinsically evil—as he did, say, idolatry. God regarded the patriarchy (and concomitant polygamy) of ancient Israel as simply the culture of the time. Although patriarchy was not the offense to God’s holiness that idolatry was, this is no reason to conclude that it was entirely pleasing to him. God regulated the culture of the Israelites, reforming it in various ways. God certainly regards some cultures as more sinful than others, and he also desires his people to seek to renovate culture according to biblical ethical principles. However, God’s rule in this world is not directed primarily to transforming human culture to his divine standard, but rather to transforming the hearts of his people.
A number of the dissenting PC commentators intoned the argument that the OT prophets saw the rule of women as God's judgment against Israel (Isa.3:12), and that the example of Deborah (Judges 4 & 5) was actually an anomaly that highlighted the failure of Barak to lead. So let us look specifically at these instances.
In Isaiah 3:12, the rule of women is presented as an indication of God’s judgment against Israel. Why was this seen in such a light? Fundamentally, it is a picture of the total breakdown of ordered society (by the standards of society in the ancient near east). Reference is also made in Isa. 3:4 to boys and children in official governing positions. In the entire near east—including the pagan and idolatrous nations—government by women or youngsters was an indication of extreme political instability and social disarray. By definition, patriarchal culture is ruled largely or entirely by men. When there are no men in leadership in such cultures, it is an indication that the social structures are disintegrating. This is precisely the situation described by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 3. The allusion to boys and children and women ruling is a telling metaphor (they were not actually ruling) of the ruinous state of anarchy that the prophet was predicting would come upon the nation of Israel.
If Isaiah’s picture of Israel’s ruin in 3:12 were indicative of the errors and terrors of female leadership, then this would flatly contradict the account of Deborah’s godly, beneficial, and victorious leadership of Israel (Judges 4 & 5). The biblical narrative here offers only praise for Deborah. The nation of Israel cried out to Deborah, their national leader, and she delivered the people from twenty years of being oppressed by a Canaanite king. Deborah, who was also a prophet, began her military campaign with a prophetic word for Barak: God was commanding him to take the troops to Mount Tabor. This was not just a clever idea that Deborah had come up with; it was the word of the Lord. Barak should have recognized it as such and offered unconditional obedience to God’s call upon him; but he did not. He was willing to obey God’s command only if Deborah went with him. Barak evidently did not believe that God would go with him unless Deborah—upon whom God’s hand obviously rested—would go with him as well. There is no indication in the text that Barak was rebuked because he failed to exercise his God-given male leadership. There is not a hint of even the concept of God-given male leadership. What is quite evident from the text is that God had commanded Barak to do a thing, and Barak had agreed to it only under his conditions. This is not wholehearted faith and obedience; this is faint heartedness—a failure to trust wholly in the Lord. And this is a sin whether it is committed by a man or a woman.
In the end of this story, everyone is a hero—Deborah, Barak, and Jael—but God alone is given credit for the victory. What a lovely picture of men and women serving God as leaders together!
Rather than being an object lesson on the failure of male leadership, the remarkable story of Deborah’s leadership of Israel single-handedly refutes the notion that God has ordained that leadership authority is the sole province of men. As I noted in Good News for Women, page 190, proponents of male-only leadership “often try to explain that a ministry of such power and prominence as Deborah’s was an exception to the rule of male authority in the Bible. But exceptions to rules occur in the natural and social realms; they do not occur in the realm of God’s moral law. If God called Deborah to her ministry, female leadership cannot be said to violate moral principles ordained by God.”
This can be boiled down to a simple modus tolens argument (the argument form “If P then Q; not Q, therefore, not P”). The following construction of the argument is taken from notes by Doug Groothuis. (1) If men have universal and God-mandated authority over women in the church, then we should find no divinely authorized woman leader in the Bible. (2) Deborah was such a leader in both spiritual and political capacities. (3) Therefore, there is no universal and God-mandated authority by men over women in the church (by modus tolens).
So then, who is the true complementarian? And which sort of “complementarity” is the most consistent?
More to come in Part 2.
One such dissenter speaks of this view as a “complementarian compromise,” and of certain representatives of CBMW and SBC as “semi-complementarians.” He defines complementarians as “those who believe that men and women have different but complementary roles according to the revealed will of God.” Given that this dispute seems to be about the “true” meaning of gender “complementarity,” I would like to begin by considering this fellow’s definition of such. Besides co-opting this view as the only possible account of biblical truth, he also invokes the standard euphemism of “different but complementary roles.” This phrase—taken literally, apart from the implicit coding of the language—is also true of biblical equality (BE). The PC view is not rightly distinguished from the BE view merely by its affirmation of different but complementary roles, because biblical egalitarians also recognize and affirm different yet complementary roles for women and men.
Difference in gender roles can be universally true or only generally true. The universally different roles of men and women are (a) the different reproductive functions of male and female, and (b) the creationally ordained pattern of marriage, whereby a man marries a woman and a woman marries a man for as long as they both shall live. This may seem overly obvious and thus unimportant; but the point is that these are nonetheless “roles,” which are affirmed by the BE view of gender. In our sexually confused culture, these “obvious” roles are being abrogated right and left, what with reproduction occurring in various inventive ways and, of course, the notion of marriage expanding into assorted arrangements other than one man and one woman for one lifetime.
Most of us have also noticed gender differences that obtain generally but not universally. For example, women tend to be more inclined than men to nurture young children at home. In addition, men and women typically exhibit different communication styles (women tend to process ideas in a more holistic and relational fashion, are more readily engaged in personal conversations, etc.). Also, there is a general difference between conceptual processing in women and men (women tend to have a more integrative way of thinking, while men seem more inclined to focus on single issues). Differences such as these are truly complementary, and demonstrate why it is usually beneficial to have both men and women working together in various projects, churches, and organizations, according to each one’s gifts and callings.
However, it is not possible to ascertain which of these general differences between men and women may have been established by God in the original act of creation, and which have developed as a result of the fall. PC advocates of “Mars and Venus” views of gender difference routinely confuse “what is” with “what originally was.” For example, the male inclination to pursue a woman and then, after the conquest, to hunt for someone new, has seemed so ingrained to so many that it is sometimes viewed as “the way God made men to be.” But this much, at least, we know is untrue. The way God set things up with regard to romance and marriage is succinctly but certainly set forth in Genesis 2:24.
Similarly, it is impossible to decipher which generally apparent gender differences are due to nature and which are due to nurture, or what mixture of nature and nurture there may be in these generalizable differences. Because of the powerful and pervasive influence of environment on human behavior, innate gender differences cannot be isolated and then manipulated and controlled in scientific experimentation. Yet it is evident that in every culture there are general behavioral differences between women and men, some of which seem to be more or less consistent across culture; but even this does not necessarily show these differences to be ordained by God. Between us and God’s creation there stands the fall, by which the world suffered significant disruption of God’s original desire for human life. Nonetheless, wherever there are generally consistent differences in expertise or inclination between women and men, there is gender complementarity.
Although the points of difference between men and women can vary from time to time and culture to culture, the consistency of complementarity (in the true sense!) is indicative of God’s creationally ordained differentiation of male and female humanity. This we can know to be God’s design! What is not warranted from either nature or Scripture is a flat-footed stance on what men and women ought and ought not do in terms of ministry and vocation in order to be truly feminine or truly masculine in accordance with what God “clearly” ordained at creation.
This issue of nurture and nature—or, more to the point, culture and creation—bears on the question of mandating unilateral male authority on the basis of the patriarchy of Old Testament culture and social structures. Those who consider themselves fully complementarian invoke the universal expectation of male rule in ancient Israel as proof that God explicitly commands civil leaders to be men.
Yet the idea that we can derive God’s ideal for human culture and behavior from a world in which sin is imbedded in every social structure is naïve at best. The fact that God did not directly rebuke patriarchal culture, but rather worked within it, does not indicate that these structures were his ideal for human culture. No, God’s ideal culture would have to be discerned from pre-fall culture—of which we have little information (although we do have God’s pre-fall account of marriage in Genesis 2:24, which exactly reverses patriarchal culture).
In patriarchal culture, a woman leaves her parents’ home and is taken into the extended family of her husband. She becomes a part of her husband’s family, under the rule of her husband and the family patriarch (typically her husband’s father). But in Genesis 2, after God created the woman and before the man and woman fell into sin, God decreed a very different picture of marriage: the oneness between woman and man would come from the man leaving his own family and cleaving to his wife. The two would then become one unit, one flesh.
It is also telling that nowhere in the OT is male rule specifically mandated. It is simply assumed, given the culture of the times. In ancient agrarian societies, patriarchy was the only game in town. This was the culture of all societies, including the heathen nations.
Because God is sovereign, he orders and directs all that occurs in this world. However, this does not entail that everything that occurs is in accordance with God’s specific design and perfect pleasure for his people. This is a fallen world, and sin pervades every aspect of human social structures this side of Eden. We cannot conclude that patriarchy was ordained by God simply because it was there.
It is true that God did not treat patriarchal culture as intrinsically evil—as he did, say, idolatry. God regarded the patriarchy (and concomitant polygamy) of ancient Israel as simply the culture of the time. Although patriarchy was not the offense to God’s holiness that idolatry was, this is no reason to conclude that it was entirely pleasing to him. God regulated the culture of the Israelites, reforming it in various ways. God certainly regards some cultures as more sinful than others, and he also desires his people to seek to renovate culture according to biblical ethical principles. However, God’s rule in this world is not directed primarily to transforming human culture to his divine standard, but rather to transforming the hearts of his people.
A number of the dissenting PC commentators intoned the argument that the OT prophets saw the rule of women as God's judgment against Israel (Isa.3:12), and that the example of Deborah (Judges 4 & 5) was actually an anomaly that highlighted the failure of Barak to lead. So let us look specifically at these instances.
In Isaiah 3:12, the rule of women is presented as an indication of God’s judgment against Israel. Why was this seen in such a light? Fundamentally, it is a picture of the total breakdown of ordered society (by the standards of society in the ancient near east). Reference is also made in Isa. 3:4 to boys and children in official governing positions. In the entire near east—including the pagan and idolatrous nations—government by women or youngsters was an indication of extreme political instability and social disarray. By definition, patriarchal culture is ruled largely or entirely by men. When there are no men in leadership in such cultures, it is an indication that the social structures are disintegrating. This is precisely the situation described by the prophet Isaiah in chapter 3. The allusion to boys and children and women ruling is a telling metaphor (they were not actually ruling) of the ruinous state of anarchy that the prophet was predicting would come upon the nation of Israel.
If Isaiah’s picture of Israel’s ruin in 3:12 were indicative of the errors and terrors of female leadership, then this would flatly contradict the account of Deborah’s godly, beneficial, and victorious leadership of Israel (Judges 4 & 5). The biblical narrative here offers only praise for Deborah. The nation of Israel cried out to Deborah, their national leader, and she delivered the people from twenty years of being oppressed by a Canaanite king. Deborah, who was also a prophet, began her military campaign with a prophetic word for Barak: God was commanding him to take the troops to Mount Tabor. This was not just a clever idea that Deborah had come up with; it was the word of the Lord. Barak should have recognized it as such and offered unconditional obedience to God’s call upon him; but he did not. He was willing to obey God’s command only if Deborah went with him. Barak evidently did not believe that God would go with him unless Deborah—upon whom God’s hand obviously rested—would go with him as well. There is no indication in the text that Barak was rebuked because he failed to exercise his God-given male leadership. There is not a hint of even the concept of God-given male leadership. What is quite evident from the text is that God had commanded Barak to do a thing, and Barak had agreed to it only under his conditions. This is not wholehearted faith and obedience; this is faint heartedness—a failure to trust wholly in the Lord. And this is a sin whether it is committed by a man or a woman.
In the end of this story, everyone is a hero—Deborah, Barak, and Jael—but God alone is given credit for the victory. What a lovely picture of men and women serving God as leaders together!
Rather than being an object lesson on the failure of male leadership, the remarkable story of Deborah’s leadership of Israel single-handedly refutes the notion that God has ordained that leadership authority is the sole province of men. As I noted in Good News for Women, page 190, proponents of male-only leadership “often try to explain that a ministry of such power and prominence as Deborah’s was an exception to the rule of male authority in the Bible. But exceptions to rules occur in the natural and social realms; they do not occur in the realm of God’s moral law. If God called Deborah to her ministry, female leadership cannot be said to violate moral principles ordained by God.”
This can be boiled down to a simple modus tolens argument (the argument form “If P then Q; not Q, therefore, not P”). The following construction of the argument is taken from notes by Doug Groothuis. (1) If men have universal and God-mandated authority over women in the church, then we should find no divinely authorized woman leader in the Bible. (2) Deborah was such a leader in both spiritual and political capacities. (3) Therefore, there is no universal and God-mandated authority by men over women in the church (by modus tolens).
So then, who is the true complementarian? And which sort of “complementarity” is the most consistent?
More to come in Part 2.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Feminism and Sarah Palin
As Sarah Palin burst onto the national political and religious scene, I at first wondered if there would be an across-the-board shifting of political alignments. Palin, a pro-life conservative, has clearly been speaking and acting in some definitely feminist ways. Indeed, she has been riding on the coat tails of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which encouraged women to utilize their talents and abilities outside the home in vocational fields previously reserved largely for men. Will conservative, staunchly patriarchal evangelicals support a woman who holds some feminist views (“This is America; a woman can go through any door”), and who is a member of Feminists for Life? While she evidently has been a good mother to her five children, her executive responsibilities would necessarily require her to assume a “man’s role” in the world while her children are attended to by others. And what about the secular feminists? Will any of them come over to Palin’s side? After all, if she and McCain win the election, she will be the first female Vice President in the White House. Now that would definitely be a “feminist” accomplishment!
Before proceeding further, we need to make a distinction between feminism and biblical equality. Feminism is and always has been rightly applicable to culture at large. It has to do with how men and women should interact in society. Feminism has wrought many changes in society; little by little restrictions placed on women have been chipped away—sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. (Restrictions are not always bad; some are necessary for a good and godly society.) On the other hand, biblical equality has to do with exegeting, theologizing, and applying the truth of Scripture to male-female relationships in various arenas, especially in the church and marriage. Thus, to assert that someone who defends the view of biblical equality is ipso facto a “feminist” is a category error. On this blog we have not previously addressed or defended feminism, but only biblical equality—namely, how best to understand Scripture on the question of spiritual authority between women and men. But now we are discussing…feminism!
So then, how have the various culture warriors responded to Sarah Palin, whose behavior and beliefs seem to fall into both conservative and feminist camps, yet cannot readily be defined by either? As it turns out, the old alignments have for the most part remained intact, yet with some subtle shifts, and the priorities of the right and the left regarding the women issue have been clarified in some surprising ways.
Actual feminists hate Sarah Palin. With one voice. There is no accommodating her in that camp. These are the left-wing, non Bible believing, abortion “choice” fanatics. Adherence to abortion “rights” is their litmus test, and it is enforced as rigidly and religiously as the patriarchal-complementarian (PC) institutions enforce adherence to “male headship,” and by the same means: censuring and ostrasizing all who do not pass the litmus test. This, then, is why feminists in the current culture refuse to acknowledge Feminists for Life as truly feminist (an organization of which Palin is a member)—even though abortion is the only significant point at which FFL breaks ranks with current, orthodox feminism. (There are a number of feminist issues that they don’t directly address, since their main focus is on saving unborn babies from destruction.) Albert Mohler says he cannot understand why feminists (such as Sally Quinn of the “On Faith” blog) are critical of Sarah Palin. After all, isn’t Palin demonstrating distinctly feminist proclivities? Well, Dr. Mohler, this is why.
On the other hand, staunchly PC mainstream evangelicals love Sarah Palin. But not quite with one voice. They offer diverse and somewhat inventive rationales for why a woman may be fit to lead the free world but never a small church congregation. I have surveyed numerous PC responses to Sarah Palin’s candidacy for Vice President. Diverse though the rationales may be, there is one consistent thread: A woman can be as competent as a man in high-level political leadership. Whatever the God-given “difference” may be between male and female, it is not the ability to govern in secular leadership positions. Whew! That is certainly a huge reversal of the traditional view of the difference between men and women. What, I wonder, have become of the PCs who believe that women just don’t have the gift of leadership? That God has not equipped women to rule, and especially not to rule men?
So we now see clearly that the primary concern of both the PCs and the secular feminists is the issue of “abortion rights.” The secular feminists would really like to have a woman in the white house—but not unless she is there to promote the alleged “right” of a woman to kill her in utero child for the sake of her personal convenience. The PCs really want all women to be subordinate and domestic—unless a woman is ready and willing to serve as a pro-life advocate in the White House.
Among the various PC rationales for why women are fit for civil leadership but not spiritual leadership, a few posts noted that church leaders must meet a higher moral standard than leaders of the secular world. The CBMW statement posted on the Gender Blog by David Kotter on September 3 (followed by a similar statement on September 5) says that “A president is not held to the same moral standards as an elder of a church….Even though the Bible reserves final authority in the church for men, this does not apply in the kingdom of this world.” This comment comes the closest yet to an admission of what I have often averred is logically entailed by the PC gender agenda: women qua women are unqualified to serve as spiritual leaders. Women may be in authority over men only in the lower realm of civil leadership. Women cannot meet the higher moral standard of church leadership. Women are fit to exercise authority in the kingdom of this world (which is under the power of the “prince of this world”), but are not fit to rule in the kingdom of God.
From whence comes this across-the-board spiritual inferiority of women? Could it be that the new covenant in Christ Jesus didn’t quite take where women are concerned? Could it be that women are still just a tad “unclean”? No, that is contradicted by the Cross of Christ and the blood of his sacrifice. Could it be that God created woman spiritually inferior to man? No, that is contradicted by the first chapter of the Bible. Could it be that fallen human beings fail to see the inevitable implications of their own fallen ways of thinking regarding the vexed question of the meaning of humanity created male and female? Yes.
Kotter, I am sure, does not intend to imply women’s spiritual inferiority, given CBMW’s oft repeated insistence on their “high view of women” and the “unbelievably high calling of being a wife and mother,” as reiterated in both of Kotter’s statements. My point here is simply that this perspective seems necessarily to entail women’s spiritual inferiority.
Another perspective repeatedly voiced in my survey of PC views was that of “the clear teaching of Scripture” on male leadership in the church and in marriage. Woman’s subordination to male authority is, it seems, patently obvious; only heretics and morons could think otherwise. (At this point I cannot resist “just a little news flash” for those who are so certain. When all the relevant considerations of the biblical text are carefully and honestly considered—i.e., the possible word meanings, the literal and cultural contexts, the entire rest of the Bible, the logical entailments of the “clear teaching”—things turn out not to be so very clear.) However, teaching can be clear if one is willing and able to connect the dots and respect every word of Scripture in one’s interpretation of specific texts in Scripture.
A literalistic perspective of Scripture accompanies and encourages the simply clarity that they profess. PC pronouncements on what women may and may not do are not derived from a theologically and philosophically integrated worldview of creational gender realities. Rather, they seem to be drawn from specific and isolated facts located at various points in the Bible. Since the Bible does not specifically say women may not exercise civil leadership, it should not be prohibited. (The fact that Deborah’s leadership was both civil and spiritual—she was a prophet—seems to have escaped their categories.) Since 1 Tim 2:12 says that a woman must not teach or have authority over a man, they conclude that the Bible denies the exercise of all high-level spiritual/religious authority to all women for all time despite the other indications in Scripture that would strongly suggest otherwise. And, since the Bible says women are the spiritual equals of men, they affirm that this is true, yet claim—simple logic notwithstanding—that women are still unfit to render spiritual service to the church alongside men.
In the end, it seems that the “clear teaching” and literal meaning of Scripture on “complementary roles” for manhood and womanhood—which up to now has fairly consistently meant that God created men to be leaders and women to be subordinate to male leadership—is not such a consistent and comprehensive perspective after all. Rather, when push comes to shove, it simply means that in the church and home, for whatever reason, men must be the boss and women must be subordinate to male authority. Outside of these two realms, gender “complementarity” is either moot or nonexistent. What, exactly, God did at creation is immensely unclear. Evidently (on the PC view), God did not create man and woman with certain different propensities inherent to the nature of manhood and womanhood, such that men were created to rule and women to submit. For indeed, outside the church and home, in the secular culture, such “differences" seem largely to disappear. There is definite confusion in the camp of the complementarians.
But what now will become of the f-word (i.e., feminism), which has been so frequently and reflexively invoked by those of the PC persuasion to encompass all kinds of “feminism” from the mildest to the wildest? For many years, the f-invective was used to refer to any female behavior that transgressed the bounds of subordinate wife and mother tending to children at home. Within PC circles, the conceptual content of the term has been of far less interest than the rhetorical wielding of the term to invoke fear of heresy and thus to shut down rational thought on the subject. For at least a couple of decades the f-word has been the default category for biblical equality, and it has been a winning strategy. Call it “feminist,” and the rank and file of church-going evangelicals will not go near it.
In my short-lived, ill-fated book Women Caught in the Conflict, I carefully explained the significant differences between the various species of feminism—from the simple and sensible notion of a wife and mother having a vocation outside the home (if circumstances reasonably permit), to the radical feminist personal/political agenda, to goddess worship and the divine feminine. These crucial distinctions all were lost on those of the PC persuasion. The one-size-fits-all view of feminism prevailed and my clear and careful categories went summarily out of print. (The book was reprinted by Wipf & Stock, see the publications page on my website) Painting all feminism with the same brush was a quick and easy way to cut off all constructive dialog, lest there be opportunity to consider the possible merits of biblical equality for women.
But now we have SBC leader Richard Land speaking favorably of the same type of feminism that I cautiously and provisionally endorsed in Women Caught in the Conflict. A Christianity Today online interview reported that: Richard Land is "ecstatic" over Sen. John McCain's decision to pick Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as vice president, and the women in his office are just as excited. They were absolutely giddy, and saying ‘I’m going to volunteer’ after Sarah Palin was picked," said Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "There’s something going on in the conservative independent sisterhood that I can’t tap into….I can’t comprehend it, but it’s there. Clearly, her nominations tapped into something, which I can observe as a white male but can’t experience. My wife says, to her, Sarah Palin is what the feminists’ movement was all about. You can have a family and a husband and a career, that you can do it all. My wife has a Ph.D. in psychology, she’s in private practice as a psychotherapist. I find these questions about ‘how can she take care of her children and be vice president’ sexist. Nobody asked that question to any of the male candidates.”
The Sarah Palin phenomenon seems to have given some PC women permission to express their suppressed yearnings for freedom, opportunity and significance outside the home (yet without dismissing their domestic duties).
Indeed, one must endorse the basic, early concept of feminism—that a woman should have opportunity to serve in a vocation outside the home—if one is to endorse Sarah Palin as a good choice for Vice President of the U.S. This is logically entailed and evidently readily recognized as such by those of the PC perspective.
So, it seems we’re all feminists now. No longer may “feminism” universally serve as the f-word. Its meaning now must be qualified. Sarah Palin is a feminist and a Bible believing Christian and is radically (that is, she lives it out) pro-life. No longer can PCs insist on labeling biblical egalitarians “evangelical feminists”—by by which they have meant “feminists who ‘purport’ to believe the Bible.” Feminism can no longer be snidely and categorically dismissed as “liberalism.” It must finally be recognized that there are strongly pro-life Christians who also want to see women break out of their conservative evangelical subculture and take up their freedom in Christ to speak to and influence the world and the church with the wisdom and talents God has given them.
But for this to truly and fully occur, women must see that they are equally endowed not only with ability to lead nations, but with the ability and the authorization from Christ—by virtue of the new covenant which he instituted by his blood—to serve and to lead in the church and the world with spiritual authority as well as civil authority.
Before proceeding further, we need to make a distinction between feminism and biblical equality. Feminism is and always has been rightly applicable to culture at large. It has to do with how men and women should interact in society. Feminism has wrought many changes in society; little by little restrictions placed on women have been chipped away—sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. (Restrictions are not always bad; some are necessary for a good and godly society.) On the other hand, biblical equality has to do with exegeting, theologizing, and applying the truth of Scripture to male-female relationships in various arenas, especially in the church and marriage. Thus, to assert that someone who defends the view of biblical equality is ipso facto a “feminist” is a category error. On this blog we have not previously addressed or defended feminism, but only biblical equality—namely, how best to understand Scripture on the question of spiritual authority between women and men. But now we are discussing…feminism!
So then, how have the various culture warriors responded to Sarah Palin, whose behavior and beliefs seem to fall into both conservative and feminist camps, yet cannot readily be defined by either? As it turns out, the old alignments have for the most part remained intact, yet with some subtle shifts, and the priorities of the right and the left regarding the women issue have been clarified in some surprising ways.
Actual feminists hate Sarah Palin. With one voice. There is no accommodating her in that camp. These are the left-wing, non Bible believing, abortion “choice” fanatics. Adherence to abortion “rights” is their litmus test, and it is enforced as rigidly and religiously as the patriarchal-complementarian (PC) institutions enforce adherence to “male headship,” and by the same means: censuring and ostrasizing all who do not pass the litmus test. This, then, is why feminists in the current culture refuse to acknowledge Feminists for Life as truly feminist (an organization of which Palin is a member)—even though abortion is the only significant point at which FFL breaks ranks with current, orthodox feminism. (There are a number of feminist issues that they don’t directly address, since their main focus is on saving unborn babies from destruction.) Albert Mohler says he cannot understand why feminists (such as Sally Quinn of the “On Faith” blog) are critical of Sarah Palin. After all, isn’t Palin demonstrating distinctly feminist proclivities? Well, Dr. Mohler, this is why.
On the other hand, staunchly PC mainstream evangelicals love Sarah Palin. But not quite with one voice. They offer diverse and somewhat inventive rationales for why a woman may be fit to lead the free world but never a small church congregation. I have surveyed numerous PC responses to Sarah Palin’s candidacy for Vice President. Diverse though the rationales may be, there is one consistent thread: A woman can be as competent as a man in high-level political leadership. Whatever the God-given “difference” may be between male and female, it is not the ability to govern in secular leadership positions. Whew! That is certainly a huge reversal of the traditional view of the difference between men and women. What, I wonder, have become of the PCs who believe that women just don’t have the gift of leadership? That God has not equipped women to rule, and especially not to rule men?
So we now see clearly that the primary concern of both the PCs and the secular feminists is the issue of “abortion rights.” The secular feminists would really like to have a woman in the white house—but not unless she is there to promote the alleged “right” of a woman to kill her in utero child for the sake of her personal convenience. The PCs really want all women to be subordinate and domestic—unless a woman is ready and willing to serve as a pro-life advocate in the White House.
Among the various PC rationales for why women are fit for civil leadership but not spiritual leadership, a few posts noted that church leaders must meet a higher moral standard than leaders of the secular world. The CBMW statement posted on the Gender Blog by David Kotter on September 3 (followed by a similar statement on September 5) says that “A president is not held to the same moral standards as an elder of a church….Even though the Bible reserves final authority in the church for men, this does not apply in the kingdom of this world.” This comment comes the closest yet to an admission of what I have often averred is logically entailed by the PC gender agenda: women qua women are unqualified to serve as spiritual leaders. Women may be in authority over men only in the lower realm of civil leadership. Women cannot meet the higher moral standard of church leadership. Women are fit to exercise authority in the kingdom of this world (which is under the power of the “prince of this world”), but are not fit to rule in the kingdom of God.
From whence comes this across-the-board spiritual inferiority of women? Could it be that the new covenant in Christ Jesus didn’t quite take where women are concerned? Could it be that women are still just a tad “unclean”? No, that is contradicted by the Cross of Christ and the blood of his sacrifice. Could it be that God created woman spiritually inferior to man? No, that is contradicted by the first chapter of the Bible. Could it be that fallen human beings fail to see the inevitable implications of their own fallen ways of thinking regarding the vexed question of the meaning of humanity created male and female? Yes.
Kotter, I am sure, does not intend to imply women’s spiritual inferiority, given CBMW’s oft repeated insistence on their “high view of women” and the “unbelievably high calling of being a wife and mother,” as reiterated in both of Kotter’s statements. My point here is simply that this perspective seems necessarily to entail women’s spiritual inferiority.
Another perspective repeatedly voiced in my survey of PC views was that of “the clear teaching of Scripture” on male leadership in the church and in marriage. Woman’s subordination to male authority is, it seems, patently obvious; only heretics and morons could think otherwise. (At this point I cannot resist “just a little news flash” for those who are so certain. When all the relevant considerations of the biblical text are carefully and honestly considered—i.e., the possible word meanings, the literal and cultural contexts, the entire rest of the Bible, the logical entailments of the “clear teaching”—things turn out not to be so very clear.) However, teaching can be clear if one is willing and able to connect the dots and respect every word of Scripture in one’s interpretation of specific texts in Scripture.
A literalistic perspective of Scripture accompanies and encourages the simply clarity that they profess. PC pronouncements on what women may and may not do are not derived from a theologically and philosophically integrated worldview of creational gender realities. Rather, they seem to be drawn from specific and isolated facts located at various points in the Bible. Since the Bible does not specifically say women may not exercise civil leadership, it should not be prohibited. (The fact that Deborah’s leadership was both civil and spiritual—she was a prophet—seems to have escaped their categories.) Since 1 Tim 2:12 says that a woman must not teach or have authority over a man, they conclude that the Bible denies the exercise of all high-level spiritual/religious authority to all women for all time despite the other indications in Scripture that would strongly suggest otherwise. And, since the Bible says women are the spiritual equals of men, they affirm that this is true, yet claim—simple logic notwithstanding—that women are still unfit to render spiritual service to the church alongside men.
In the end, it seems that the “clear teaching” and literal meaning of Scripture on “complementary roles” for manhood and womanhood—which up to now has fairly consistently meant that God created men to be leaders and women to be subordinate to male leadership—is not such a consistent and comprehensive perspective after all. Rather, when push comes to shove, it simply means that in the church and home, for whatever reason, men must be the boss and women must be subordinate to male authority. Outside of these two realms, gender “complementarity” is either moot or nonexistent. What, exactly, God did at creation is immensely unclear. Evidently (on the PC view), God did not create man and woman with certain different propensities inherent to the nature of manhood and womanhood, such that men were created to rule and women to submit. For indeed, outside the church and home, in the secular culture, such “differences" seem largely to disappear. There is definite confusion in the camp of the complementarians.
But what now will become of the f-word (i.e., feminism), which has been so frequently and reflexively invoked by those of the PC persuasion to encompass all kinds of “feminism” from the mildest to the wildest? For many years, the f-invective was used to refer to any female behavior that transgressed the bounds of subordinate wife and mother tending to children at home. Within PC circles, the conceptual content of the term has been of far less interest than the rhetorical wielding of the term to invoke fear of heresy and thus to shut down rational thought on the subject. For at least a couple of decades the f-word has been the default category for biblical equality, and it has been a winning strategy. Call it “feminist,” and the rank and file of church-going evangelicals will not go near it.
In my short-lived, ill-fated book Women Caught in the Conflict, I carefully explained the significant differences between the various species of feminism—from the simple and sensible notion of a wife and mother having a vocation outside the home (if circumstances reasonably permit), to the radical feminist personal/political agenda, to goddess worship and the divine feminine. These crucial distinctions all were lost on those of the PC persuasion. The one-size-fits-all view of feminism prevailed and my clear and careful categories went summarily out of print. (The book was reprinted by Wipf & Stock, see the publications page on my website) Painting all feminism with the same brush was a quick and easy way to cut off all constructive dialog, lest there be opportunity to consider the possible merits of biblical equality for women.
But now we have SBC leader Richard Land speaking favorably of the same type of feminism that I cautiously and provisionally endorsed in Women Caught in the Conflict. A Christianity Today online interview reported that: Richard Land is "ecstatic" over Sen. John McCain's decision to pick Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as vice president, and the women in his office are just as excited. They were absolutely giddy, and saying ‘I’m going to volunteer’ after Sarah Palin was picked," said Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "There’s something going on in the conservative independent sisterhood that I can’t tap into….I can’t comprehend it, but it’s there. Clearly, her nominations tapped into something, which I can observe as a white male but can’t experience. My wife says, to her, Sarah Palin is what the feminists’ movement was all about. You can have a family and a husband and a career, that you can do it all. My wife has a Ph.D. in psychology, she’s in private practice as a psychotherapist. I find these questions about ‘how can she take care of her children and be vice president’ sexist. Nobody asked that question to any of the male candidates.”
The Sarah Palin phenomenon seems to have given some PC women permission to express their suppressed yearnings for freedom, opportunity and significance outside the home (yet without dismissing their domestic duties).
Indeed, one must endorse the basic, early concept of feminism—that a woman should have opportunity to serve in a vocation outside the home—if one is to endorse Sarah Palin as a good choice for Vice President of the U.S. This is logically entailed and evidently readily recognized as such by those of the PC perspective.
So, it seems we’re all feminists now. No longer may “feminism” universally serve as the f-word. Its meaning now must be qualified. Sarah Palin is a feminist and a Bible believing Christian and is radically (that is, she lives it out) pro-life. No longer can PCs insist on labeling biblical egalitarians “evangelical feminists”—by by which they have meant “feminists who ‘purport’ to believe the Bible.” Feminism can no longer be snidely and categorically dismissed as “liberalism.” It must finally be recognized that there are strongly pro-life Christians who also want to see women break out of their conservative evangelical subculture and take up their freedom in Christ to speak to and influence the world and the church with the wisdom and talents God has given them.
But for this to truly and fully occur, women must see that they are equally endowed not only with ability to lead nations, but with the ability and the authorization from Christ—by virtue of the new covenant which he instituted by his blood—to serve and to lead in the church and the world with spiritual authority as well as civil authority.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Blog Holiday
The “Leaders Together” blog is taking a holiday. Due to a variety of matters that have recently arisen and are requiring my attention, the blog will be in "recess" until the fall.
But while I am “away,” please do leave your comments regarding what you think of the blog thus far. What items or aspects of the blog would you like see added or removed? What questions or issues would you like to see addressed? Also, please leave whatever remarks or questions you may have about the recent “Basics of Biblical Equality” post.
Have a good rest-0f-the-summer!
But while I am “away,” please do leave your comments regarding what you think of the blog thus far. What items or aspects of the blog would you like see added or removed? What questions or issues would you like to see addressed? Also, please leave whatever remarks or questions you may have about the recent “Basics of Biblical Equality” post.
Have a good rest-0f-the-summer!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Basics of Biblical Equality: Belief & Practice
Belief in biblical equality is grounded in the biblical teaching that all believers have been given authority in Christ. The claim of equal authority for both men and women is not based on the feminism of secular culture, but on the biblical data, which upholds the freedom and authority of both men and women in Christ. While feminist ideology is derived from cultural factors and philosophies, biblical equality is grounded simply and solely in the properly consistent interpretation of God’s Word.
Like most cultural systems of thought, feminist ideology is partly true and partly false (almost entirely false at this point in history!). But the question at stake for Christian believers is not whether feminism is good or bad. The issue is not about feminism. It is about our willingness and ability to discern what the Bible says—as well as what it does not say—about the place of women and men in the body of Christ.
Biblical equality does not mean that men and women are identical or undifferentiated. God has created and designed men and women to complement and benefit one another, and there do seem to be average differences in behavior (both learned and intrinsic) between women and men.
Biblical equality does mean that gender, in and of itself, neither privileges nor curtails a believer’s gifting or calling to any ministry in the church or home; that all believers in Christ stand on equal ground before God; and that spiritual authority, as biblically defined, is as much a female believer’s privilege and responsibility as it is a male believer’s. All believers stand on the same biblical terms of faith and service, in accordance with the ways in which each one is gifted and called.
I. Basic Beliefs
1. According to Genesis 1:26-28, both male and female reflect and represent God by virtue of the divine image, and both represent God as authoritative agents who rule the earth under God. This creational rule consists of “the ongoing activity of God’s ordering and creating in the world and in civilization” (Hess, Discovering Biblical Equality, 82). Although human sin has defaced the divine image in humanity and skewed the authority that man and woman once shared together, God has provided redemption for us. In Christ all of redeemed humanity is authorized and obligated to obey and to proclaim the Word of God to both the church and the world. Our authority to rule and to proclaim rests in the authority of Scripture and the authority of our risen Lord, not in any particular human quality or distinctive feature such as gender.
2. The Holy Spirit gifts, equips and calls members of Christ’s body to various spiritual ministries. Quite simply, if you have a gift, you should use it. (See 1 Peter 4:10-11, Romans 12:3-8.)
3. The submission texts do not speak of the authority of male over female as a timeless creational mandate, but rather of the biblical principle—emphasized especially in Christ’s teaching and the letters of Paul and Peter—that all believers should be submissive to one another rather than seeking to rule others, and should, as well, submit to the civil laws and cultural standards of the day to the extent that they do not require disobedience to God’s law. Thus women in the New Testament church, who were in many ways culturally and legally subordinate to men, were instructed to comply with their social role in a manner that brings glory to God—yet with the understanding that within the Body of Christ there will be a mutual sharing and edification through gifts and callings as determined by the Spirit and not by gender or race or any such old covenant classification.
4. There are two priesthoods under the new covenant in Christ: the high priesthood of Christ, who is the only mediator between God and humans (1 Tim 2:5, Heb 4:14; 6:20; 8:1-2), and the priesthood of all believers, both women and men (1 Pet 2:5, 9; Rev 1:6; 5:10). These two priesthoods leave no room for a priesthood of Christian manhood whereby God’s Word and will are mediated for woman via man’s spiritual authority over her.
5. The biblical truth of women’s spiritual and ontological equality entails that women and men stand on equal ground before God; thus they share equally in creational authority, personal agency and responsibility, and spiritual rights and privileges (e.g., Gen 1:28, Gal 3:28, 1 Pet 3:7).
6. Despite the patriarchal-complementarian (PC) role rhetoric, woman’s subordinate "role" is not merely a role or functional difference. If, as the PC view contends, woman's role is grounded in and intrinsic to God's original creation design, then woman's subordination to man's authority is a necessary and permanent element of woman's unalterable ontology. It is the way God made her to be. This, then, logically entails woman’s fundamental inferiority in being. Since we know from Scripture that man and woman are created equal in being, woman’s subordination is therefore contradicted by woman’s equality. The fundamentally equal “being” of women and men rules out any creationally-grounded subordination of women to men.
II. Putting it into Practice
Many individuals, churches, and ministries are not well acquainted with biblical equality, nor do they understand its biblical basis. How can those who are persuaded of the biblical truth of gender equality live out their beliefs without offending, alarming, and alienating those who believe otherwise? Here are just a few suggestions, applicable especially to those who are in any level of leadership in a church or Christian organization that includes a mix of both egalitarians and complementarians.
1. Do not impugn the motives of those who disagree with biblical equality, but assume that they hold to the PC position because they want to be faithful to the Bible—the same reason that biblically consistent egalitarians hold their position.
2. Encourage believers to regard one another with equal respect and mutual submission, and not to seek status, power or control over others—in accordance with the words of Jesus (Mt. 20:25-28), Paul (Eph. 5:21) and Peter (1 Pet. 3:8). At the same time, seek to honor the New Testament principle of conforming to cultural standards that are consistent with biblical ethics, in order not to distract from the gospel by causing unnecessary offense or divisiveness. Of course, in this instance the issue would be church culture, not the Greco-Roman/Jewish culture of Paul’s time. (These suggestions follow from point 3 in the “Basic Beliefs” section above.)
3. Seek to find a way to affirm and utilize everyone’s gifts and callings in the church. This may require some creativity in developing ministry opportunities that not only are biblically based but will be perceived as such by the majority in the church. For example, one large church that I know of changed the title of their leadership ministries from “pastor” to “minister,” and the church came to accept women serving in these positions (since, after all, ministry is expected of all believers).
4. Take particular care to affirm and respect women with gifts in leadership and/or scholarship (since these gifts are considered unconventional for women in conservative church cultures), and seek to make use of these gifts for the good of the church, yet without forcing an agenda that would upset people unnecessarily or distract them from discipleship and ministry.
5. Begin some discussion and teaching on the one thing both sides in the gender debate agree on, namely, the equality in being of both women and men. This could include teaching on the nature of humanity, the image of God in humanity, the authority given to both men and women at creation, and the theological implications of spiritual equality (or inequality). It could also include discussing questions such as: What does it mean to be human, created in God’s image? What does it mean for both sexes and all racial and ethnic groups to be fully human, and to stand on equal ground before God? What are our distinctively human qualities? What spiritual capacities and responsibilities do we all have? How then ought we regard and treat one another? How ought we relate to and communicate with God?
F. F. Bruce sums up the strategy well: “An appeal to first principles [i.e., Paul’s governing principle of true freedom in Christ] in our application of the New Testament demands nothing should be done to endanger the unity of a local church. Let those who understand the scriptures along the lines indicated [i.e., equality in Christ] have liberty to expound them thus, but let them not force the pace or try to impose their understanding of the scriptures until that understanding finds general acceptance with the church—and when it does, there will be no need to impose it.” (F. F. Bruce, “Women in the Church: A Biblical Survey,” Christian Brethren Review 33 [Dec. 1982]: 7-14)
Additional Resources
For a succinct discussion of all the relevant New Testament texts, see my essay, “The Bible and Gender Equality.”
For a deeper understanding of the salient biblical texts, see these chapters in Discovering Biblical Equality: 4, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 21.
For a thorough critique of the equal being/unequal role construct, see my chapter 18 in Discovering Biblical Equality.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Adam and Eve in Genesis and First Timothy
Why did God say to the woman that her desire would be for the man, and the man would rule over her? Was this—as traditional belief would have it—God’s means of punishing the woman for being the first to sin and then leading the man into sin? Or was this simply God’s announcement of what the woman would suffer as a natural consequence of both her sin and the man’s sin? And how did this alter the relationship between woman and man?
Eve was deceived by the serpent to believe that God had been withholding his blessings, and that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil would in fact be good for her, not bad. So she disobeyed God’s command by eating the fruit. She then prevailed upon Adam to eat the fruit, thus leading Adam into disobedience as well. Given that Adam was not deceived but knew very well that the serpent’s words were wrong and untrue, he would likely have had some serious reservations. Yet, Eve had the upper hand with him.
So it was that when God came to Adam and Eve after their disobedience (from which they showed no signs of repenting), God told Eve that her desire would be for the man, and he would rule over her. Although various interpretations of the woman’s “desire” have been advanced, I am inclined to agree with Richard Hess, who explains in Discovering Biblical Equality (DBE), p. 92, that this is not a sexual desire but rather a desire to dominate. Sin created a struggle of willpower between women and men.
In saying that the woman would “desire” and the man would rule, God was not issuing directives or commandments to Adam and Eve. God was simply explaining what they had gotten themselves into. The punishment fit the crime, as it were. This was the way their sin had made things to be. From now on, Eve would want to have her way with Adam—as she had done after her first sin—but she would not continue to prevail over him. She would want to have her way, but she would not. He would not let her; he would rule over her. Both would live henceforth in sin. She would want to rule him. He would rule her. This is a classic picture of the “battle of the sexes.” From the beginning, man and woman have been drawn to each other—as God made them to be. Yet ever since Genesis 3:16, man and woman have also sought to get the better of each other—as sin has made them to be.
Since male rule is a consequence of sin and not God’s commandment, it should not be sanctioned or enforced, but ameliorated as much as possible—likewise with respect to the other consequences of fallenness (pain in childbearing, weeds and thistles and so on). Yet the roots of male rule go deep into the soil of sinful humanity—inextricably deep. Although we should seek to alleviate the effects of the fall, we cannot expect eradication of sin’s effects until the new heavens and the new earth have come.
Understanding the dynamics of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden helps us to understand why Paul brings Adam and Eve into the picture when he tells the Christians in Ephesus not to permit a woman to teach or authentein a man. (The Greek word authentein has been translated various ways, including “assume authority,” “have/exercise authority,” “domineer over.”) In 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Paul draws an allusive picture of the post-fall set-up. Paul sees in the men and women of Ephesus a situation that is reminiscent of the fall of Adam and Eve. Certain women who, it would seem, were deceived and dictatorial, had been seeking to impose false doctrine on the men, just as Eve had done when she imposed the serpent’s lie upon Adam. Eve had been deceived and so had prevailed upon Adam to accept and act upon false teaching concerning God’s word. Paul is saying to the Christians in Ephesus that a woman must not do what the first woman had done.
An understanding of Paul’s prohibition as forbidding a woman to do to a man what Eve did to Adam accounts for the use of the unusual term authentein. This term does not necessarily mean having or exercising authority in the ordinary way (as it is typically rendered in modern translations). It more likely speaks of exercising a dominating influence upon someone to go along with a specific agenda or to engage in a particular activity.
Gordon Fee sums up the situation in this way: “Paul prohibits a woman from teaching a man so as to dominate him because he does not want the women in Ephesus to replay the sin of Eve, who was deceived and led Adam into sin” (DBE, p. 377). Linda Belleville summarizes Paul’s prohibition in verses 11 and 12 as follows: “Let a woman learn in a quiet and submissive fashion. I do not, however, permit her to teach with the intent to dominate a man. She must be gentle in her demeanor.” She concludes that “Paul would then be prohibiting teaching that tries to get the upper hand—not teaching per se” (DBE, p. 223). (For more detailed treatments of this text, see my essay “Leading Him Up the Garden Path,” as well as Linda Belleville, chapter 12 in DBE, and Andrew Perriman, Speaking of Women, chapter 6.)
Paul's concern appears to be with the process whereby a person becomes deceived into believing a satanically twisted view of God's Word and then proceeds to impose this teaching upon another, thereby leading the other into disobedience to God. This is what Eve did to Adam. This is evidently what some women were doing (or were in danger of doing) to some of the men in the church at Ephesus. And this is what Paul will not permit.
Thus Paul does not bar women from ministries that involve teaching and/or having authority over men (either locally or universally). Rather, when Paul says that a woman must neither teach nor authentein a man, he has in mind what the first woman did to the first man. It is the repetition of the error of Eve that Paul disallows, not a woman’s faithful exercise of her teaching and leadership gifts in the church body.
Paul's reference to "the childbearing" in 1 Tim 2:15 seems to evoke the promise of redemption God gave to Eve in Genesis 3:15. While the woman Eve was deceived by Satan when she failed to submit to God’s true word, the woman Mary heard and believed the word of the Lord to her, and so through her the Christ child was brought into the world. Thus Paul concludes his stern warnings regarding Eve and the Ephesian women on a more positive, encouraging note.
Indeed, in Genesis 3:15, even before God pronounces the dire consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin, he hints that this moral disaster is not the end of the story. There will be redemption and, what is more, the woman will be in on it. God has put enmity between Satan and the woman. That means the woman is on God’s side. She is not inherently unclean or defective, as many of the early church fathers and men throughout the millennia have assumed. God does not give the woman over to iniquity. He gives her a starring role in redemption’s drama. And this speaks not just of the one-time event of the birth of Christ. As all women (not just Eve) have in some way borne the brunt of male rule, so God desires all women (not just Mary) to serve a significant role in God’s redemptive drama. For we are each one—male and female—God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). We each have an important part to play, a part prepared by God and determined not basically according to our gender but according to the whole person God made each one of us to be.
Eve was deceived by the serpent to believe that God had been withholding his blessings, and that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil would in fact be good for her, not bad. So she disobeyed God’s command by eating the fruit. She then prevailed upon Adam to eat the fruit, thus leading Adam into disobedience as well. Given that Adam was not deceived but knew very well that the serpent’s words were wrong and untrue, he would likely have had some serious reservations. Yet, Eve had the upper hand with him.
So it was that when God came to Adam and Eve after their disobedience (from which they showed no signs of repenting), God told Eve that her desire would be for the man, and he would rule over her. Although various interpretations of the woman’s “desire” have been advanced, I am inclined to agree with Richard Hess, who explains in Discovering Biblical Equality (DBE), p. 92, that this is not a sexual desire but rather a desire to dominate. Sin created a struggle of willpower between women and men.
In saying that the woman would “desire” and the man would rule, God was not issuing directives or commandments to Adam and Eve. God was simply explaining what they had gotten themselves into. The punishment fit the crime, as it were. This was the way their sin had made things to be. From now on, Eve would want to have her way with Adam—as she had done after her first sin—but she would not continue to prevail over him. She would want to have her way, but she would not. He would not let her; he would rule over her. Both would live henceforth in sin. She would want to rule him. He would rule her. This is a classic picture of the “battle of the sexes.” From the beginning, man and woman have been drawn to each other—as God made them to be. Yet ever since Genesis 3:16, man and woman have also sought to get the better of each other—as sin has made them to be.
Since male rule is a consequence of sin and not God’s commandment, it should not be sanctioned or enforced, but ameliorated as much as possible—likewise with respect to the other consequences of fallenness (pain in childbearing, weeds and thistles and so on). Yet the roots of male rule go deep into the soil of sinful humanity—inextricably deep. Although we should seek to alleviate the effects of the fall, we cannot expect eradication of sin’s effects until the new heavens and the new earth have come.
Understanding the dynamics of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden helps us to understand why Paul brings Adam and Eve into the picture when he tells the Christians in Ephesus not to permit a woman to teach or authentein a man. (The Greek word authentein has been translated various ways, including “assume authority,” “have/exercise authority,” “domineer over.”) In 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Paul draws an allusive picture of the post-fall set-up. Paul sees in the men and women of Ephesus a situation that is reminiscent of the fall of Adam and Eve. Certain women who, it would seem, were deceived and dictatorial, had been seeking to impose false doctrine on the men, just as Eve had done when she imposed the serpent’s lie upon Adam. Eve had been deceived and so had prevailed upon Adam to accept and act upon false teaching concerning God’s word. Paul is saying to the Christians in Ephesus that a woman must not do what the first woman had done.
An understanding of Paul’s prohibition as forbidding a woman to do to a man what Eve did to Adam accounts for the use of the unusual term authentein. This term does not necessarily mean having or exercising authority in the ordinary way (as it is typically rendered in modern translations). It more likely speaks of exercising a dominating influence upon someone to go along with a specific agenda or to engage in a particular activity.
Gordon Fee sums up the situation in this way: “Paul prohibits a woman from teaching a man so as to dominate him because he does not want the women in Ephesus to replay the sin of Eve, who was deceived and led Adam into sin” (DBE, p. 377). Linda Belleville summarizes Paul’s prohibition in verses 11 and 12 as follows: “Let a woman learn in a quiet and submissive fashion. I do not, however, permit her to teach with the intent to dominate a man. She must be gentle in her demeanor.” She concludes that “Paul would then be prohibiting teaching that tries to get the upper hand—not teaching per se” (DBE, p. 223). (For more detailed treatments of this text, see my essay “Leading Him Up the Garden Path,” as well as Linda Belleville, chapter 12 in DBE, and Andrew Perriman, Speaking of Women, chapter 6.)
Paul's concern appears to be with the process whereby a person becomes deceived into believing a satanically twisted view of God's Word and then proceeds to impose this teaching upon another, thereby leading the other into disobedience to God. This is what Eve did to Adam. This is evidently what some women were doing (or were in danger of doing) to some of the men in the church at Ephesus. And this is what Paul will not permit.
Thus Paul does not bar women from ministries that involve teaching and/or having authority over men (either locally or universally). Rather, when Paul says that a woman must neither teach nor authentein a man, he has in mind what the first woman did to the first man. It is the repetition of the error of Eve that Paul disallows, not a woman’s faithful exercise of her teaching and leadership gifts in the church body.
Paul's reference to "the childbearing" in 1 Tim 2:15 seems to evoke the promise of redemption God gave to Eve in Genesis 3:15. While the woman Eve was deceived by Satan when she failed to submit to God’s true word, the woman Mary heard and believed the word of the Lord to her, and so through her the Christ child was brought into the world. Thus Paul concludes his stern warnings regarding Eve and the Ephesian women on a more positive, encouraging note.
Indeed, in Genesis 3:15, even before God pronounces the dire consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin, he hints that this moral disaster is not the end of the story. There will be redemption and, what is more, the woman will be in on it. God has put enmity between Satan and the woman. That means the woman is on God’s side. She is not inherently unclean or defective, as many of the early church fathers and men throughout the millennia have assumed. God does not give the woman over to iniquity. He gives her a starring role in redemption’s drama. And this speaks not just of the one-time event of the birth of Christ. As all women (not just Eve) have in some way borne the brunt of male rule, so God desires all women (not just Mary) to serve a significant role in God’s redemptive drama. For we are each one—male and female—God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). We each have an important part to play, a part prepared by God and determined not basically according to our gender but according to the whole person God made each one of us to be.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
The Logic of Equality
Here is a very helpful and thoughtful essay by Adam Omelianchuk, which addresses the patriarchal-complementarian (PC) argument that women and men are equal in being but unequal or different in roles. It includes a discussion of subordination in the the Trinity. Below are some excerpts of this article to whet your appetite.
If you would like to comment on this essay, please put your comments below. Thank you!
“On an Internet discussion in which I participated, one complementarian stated essentially that women should not be encouraged to preach, because by doing so they would “dishonor God.”…
“Complementarians typically charge that the biblical equality position is not reasoned from Scripture, but from outside of it by the fallen culturally conditioned human intellect. A key egalitarian argument maintains that if men and women are intrinsically equal (as complementarians affirm), then this logically rules out the assignment of an intrinsically equal person to a role of permanent and comprehensive subordination based solely on an intrinsic quality (such as gender).’’...
“But if the Father and the Son are equal in being yet in everything for all eternity relate according to a hierarchal order of authority and subordination, then is not the logic of “equal in being, unequal in role” vindicated?...
“On the surface the argument seems convincing. However, on a closer look it is striking that such a list of proof texts parallels that of the Arian and semi-Arian exegesis that reduced the Word to a demigod. This requires us to examine and test the logic that lies behind this view of the Trinity with the utmost theological care. Moreover, even if it were a true picture of Trinitarian relations, it would still fail to serve as a valid analogy to that of female subordination. I have eight reasons to support this…
“Now we come to the last and perhaps the most significant objection: The doctrine of male authority and female subordination is not about gender differences; it is about obeying God’s will. Therefore, a woman is just as capable as a man in her essential human capacities, yet she resigns herself to a God-ordained “role” where these capacities are largely prohibited from use…
“This debate is about hermeneutics and the presuppositions we bring to the biblical text. I have argued for the lens that reads the Scriptures as recognizing complementarity without hierarchy. I have gone about this, not by means of exegetical argument, but by logical argument… Thus I have reasoned from the whole to the parts (deductive reasoning), rather than from the parts to the whole (inductive reasoning)...This is analogous to the reasoning that I would use in establishing biblical inerrancy….
If you would like to comment on this essay, please put your comments below. Thank you!
“On an Internet discussion in which I participated, one complementarian stated essentially that women should not be encouraged to preach, because by doing so they would “dishonor God.”…
“Complementarians typically charge that the biblical equality position is not reasoned from Scripture, but from outside of it by the fallen culturally conditioned human intellect. A key egalitarian argument maintains that if men and women are intrinsically equal (as complementarians affirm), then this logically rules out the assignment of an intrinsically equal person to a role of permanent and comprehensive subordination based solely on an intrinsic quality (such as gender).’’...
“But if the Father and the Son are equal in being yet in everything for all eternity relate according to a hierarchal order of authority and subordination, then is not the logic of “equal in being, unequal in role” vindicated?...
“On the surface the argument seems convincing. However, on a closer look it is striking that such a list of proof texts parallels that of the Arian and semi-Arian exegesis that reduced the Word to a demigod. This requires us to examine and test the logic that lies behind this view of the Trinity with the utmost theological care. Moreover, even if it were a true picture of Trinitarian relations, it would still fail to serve as a valid analogy to that of female subordination. I have eight reasons to support this…
“Now we come to the last and perhaps the most significant objection: The doctrine of male authority and female subordination is not about gender differences; it is about obeying God’s will. Therefore, a woman is just as capable as a man in her essential human capacities, yet she resigns herself to a God-ordained “role” where these capacities are largely prohibited from use…
“This debate is about hermeneutics and the presuppositions we bring to the biblical text. I have argued for the lens that reads the Scriptures as recognizing complementarity without hierarchy. I have gone about this, not by means of exegetical argument, but by logical argument… Thus I have reasoned from the whole to the parts (deductive reasoning), rather than from the parts to the whole (inductive reasoning)...This is analogous to the reasoning that I would use in establishing biblical inerrancy….
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Differences, Distortions and Definitions
Recently, on one of my rare perusals of the Internet, I came across this account of “complementarians” and “egalitarians.” For some reason I had thought this site would probably be favorable towards biblical equality. I had but to read the (highly prejudiced!) definitions of each position to recognize that my assumption had been way off the mark!
"Complementarians believe that men and women are created in the image of God; equal in their essential dignity and personhood. By God's good and glorious design men and women have distinct, complementary roles in the home and the church. God has assigned to husbands self-sacrificial leadership in the home, and wives a joyful and respectful embrace of that leadership. God has also called qualified men to the burden and responsibility of self-denying leadership in the church, and the entire congregation to respect and submit to their leadership.
"Egalitarians believe that God created men and women equal in all respects, and that no functional distinction exists, only physical distinctions. Male and female roles and functions are interchangeable both in the home and in the church. Male hierarchy in the home and church is a result of the Fall. Basically egalitarians are Christian feminists."
For a minute there I thought that I must be a complementarian after all. Men and women essentially identical and interchangeable except for certain bodily functions? How could the drab sameness of such an arrangement stand up against all that joy and self-sacrifice, respect and responsibility and submission to self-denying leadership? Just consider the joyous state of the women as their self-sacrificing husbands shoulder the burden of self-denying leadership. What a deal! Yes, I definitely need to be a complementarian.
But wait. I am a complementarian—in the true sense of the term. I just am not a patriarchal complementarian (PC). I do believe that God created man and woman to complement, correspond to, and complete one another. Men and women are not the same except for body parts.
However, I do not believe there is warrant in Scripture—or in the empirical evidence provided by actual human beings, for that matter—to conclude that it was God’s “glorious design” from creation to put women under the rule of men (no matter how “self sacrificing” the male rule may be). I do believe the divinely designed complementarity of men and women is far more subtle, delightful, nuanced and interesting than the flat-footed “roles” that lock men into the relentless responsibility of final decision-making authority and lock women into a submission and suppression of many of the distinctively human qualities with which God endowed both men and women at creation.
By distinctively human qualities I mean those characteristics found in humans but not in the lower species (or at least not to the same extent as in humans). Some of these qualities are critical thinking, rational processing of ideas, discerning truth, making decisions based on complex criteria, directing and taking responsibility for one or more persons. All of these distinctively human abilities are either denied entirely or significantly attenuated in the PC definition of properly feminine behavior.
Women are short-changed not only in original creation, but also in the new creation in Christ. The PC parameters of godly female behavior inhibit women from full participation in the gifts, callings and responsibilities with which Christ has commissioned the members of his body. Women thus lack the spiritual authority that male believers have been given. As a result, women may not enter fully into the status and identity that every believer rightly has in Christ, and so are prohibited from fully using the gifts and wisdom with which God has endowed them.
How is this so? The New Testament teaches that God gives believers in Christ the responsibility and the calling to use their gifts, to preach the good news of the Gospel, to teach other believers, to discern and obey the Word and will of God, to serve as priests unto God, to have the mind of Christ, to exercise spiritual authority in the name of Christ and to represent Christ to the world at large. Yet PC doctrine ends up denying female believers a measure of each one of these God-given privileges and responsibilities, and so allocates to male believers the lion’s share of what the Bible speaks of as the status and calling of all believers.
So, as it turns out, the point at issue between patriarchal complementarians and egalitarian complementarians is not whether men and women are different or alike, but whether or not God did, in fact, endow man and woman equally with creational authority, and whether or not God has, indeed, called and commissioned both men and women in the new creation to take up and utilize the authority they have been given in Christ.
(The next-to-last paragraph was taken from chapter 18 in DBE.)
"Complementarians believe that men and women are created in the image of God; equal in their essential dignity and personhood. By God's good and glorious design men and women have distinct, complementary roles in the home and the church. God has assigned to husbands self-sacrificial leadership in the home, and wives a joyful and respectful embrace of that leadership. God has also called qualified men to the burden and responsibility of self-denying leadership in the church, and the entire congregation to respect and submit to their leadership.
"Egalitarians believe that God created men and women equal in all respects, and that no functional distinction exists, only physical distinctions. Male and female roles and functions are interchangeable both in the home and in the church. Male hierarchy in the home and church is a result of the Fall. Basically egalitarians are Christian feminists."
For a minute there I thought that I must be a complementarian after all. Men and women essentially identical and interchangeable except for certain bodily functions? How could the drab sameness of such an arrangement stand up against all that joy and self-sacrifice, respect and responsibility and submission to self-denying leadership? Just consider the joyous state of the women as their self-sacrificing husbands shoulder the burden of self-denying leadership. What a deal! Yes, I definitely need to be a complementarian.
But wait. I am a complementarian—in the true sense of the term. I just am not a patriarchal complementarian (PC). I do believe that God created man and woman to complement, correspond to, and complete one another. Men and women are not the same except for body parts.
However, I do not believe there is warrant in Scripture—or in the empirical evidence provided by actual human beings, for that matter—to conclude that it was God’s “glorious design” from creation to put women under the rule of men (no matter how “self sacrificing” the male rule may be). I do believe the divinely designed complementarity of men and women is far more subtle, delightful, nuanced and interesting than the flat-footed “roles” that lock men into the relentless responsibility of final decision-making authority and lock women into a submission and suppression of many of the distinctively human qualities with which God endowed both men and women at creation.
By distinctively human qualities I mean those characteristics found in humans but not in the lower species (or at least not to the same extent as in humans). Some of these qualities are critical thinking, rational processing of ideas, discerning truth, making decisions based on complex criteria, directing and taking responsibility for one or more persons. All of these distinctively human abilities are either denied entirely or significantly attenuated in the PC definition of properly feminine behavior.
Women are short-changed not only in original creation, but also in the new creation in Christ. The PC parameters of godly female behavior inhibit women from full participation in the gifts, callings and responsibilities with which Christ has commissioned the members of his body. Women thus lack the spiritual authority that male believers have been given. As a result, women may not enter fully into the status and identity that every believer rightly has in Christ, and so are prohibited from fully using the gifts and wisdom with which God has endowed them.
How is this so? The New Testament teaches that God gives believers in Christ the responsibility and the calling to use their gifts, to preach the good news of the Gospel, to teach other believers, to discern and obey the Word and will of God, to serve as priests unto God, to have the mind of Christ, to exercise spiritual authority in the name of Christ and to represent Christ to the world at large. Yet PC doctrine ends up denying female believers a measure of each one of these God-given privileges and responsibilities, and so allocates to male believers the lion’s share of what the Bible speaks of as the status and calling of all believers.
So, as it turns out, the point at issue between patriarchal complementarians and egalitarian complementarians is not whether men and women are different or alike, but whether or not God did, in fact, endow man and woman equally with creational authority, and whether or not God has, indeed, called and commissioned both men and women in the new creation to take up and utilize the authority they have been given in Christ.
(The next-to-last paragraph was taken from chapter 18 in DBE.)
Friday, May 2, 2008
Discovering Biblical Equality
Since I have referred to this edited volume several times, here is a brief discussion of the book, and of several key issues pertinent to the gender debate.
Jim Hoover of InterVarsity Press interviews Rebecca Merrill Groothuis on Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, ed. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis (IVP, 2005, 528 pages, $25.00).
Hoover: With so many books out there on the subject of men and women in the church, what was the impetus for this project? What makes it stand out from others in the field?
Groothuis: There seemed to be a clear need for a single resource that covered the main issues and arguments for biblical equality. Also, I wanted people to see that biblical equality makes sense from every angle; it’s not just a matter of exegeting a few controversial biblical proof texts (or, in some cases, “proof words”). The truth of Scripture regarding biblical equality is confirmed and demonstrated across many disciplines. It seemed this would be seen most clearly if we had a number of authors write from the perspectives of various disciplines. In making the depth and breadth of the case for biblical equality evident in this way, Discovering Biblical Equality stands alone.
Hoover: You've subtitled the book "Complementarity Without Hierarchy." Is that just deliberately provocative, or is there something substantive that you are trying to get at?
Groothuis: It is not intended to be deliberately provocative, but it does make a point—namely, that the idea of male-female complementarity is not the issue at stake in the gender debate; indeed, the concept fits as well with gender equality as with gender hierarchy. It is axiomatic that male and female are complementary; that is, they complete and correspond to one another. This is clear from the Genesis creation story. What is not clear from Genesis or anywhere else in Scripture is exactly how God created man and woman to be different from one another, outside of the obvious anatomical differences. Nor are we able to determine innate gender differences from science, due to the fact that cultural influences can never be eliminated from any experimental design. The Mars and Venus self-help books—whether secular or evangelical—do not give us this information either.
However, biblical egalitarians are persuaded that the Bible does not teach an inbuilt, God-ordained hierarchy of male authority and female subordination as an essential difference between male and female. The purpose of Discovering Biblical Equality (DBE) is to show that, according to Scripture, all believers are free to exercise their gifts in Christian ministry, to discern and follow the will of God for their own lives, and to teach the truths of Scripture to others—without the bestowal of prerogatives on some and the withholding of opportunities from others solely on the basis of one’s gender.
Hoover: Becca, your article "Equal in Being, Unequal in Role" tackles head on a major premise of those who challenge the notion of biblical equality without hierarchy. Why do you think this stock response has so much appeal? Why do you think this issue is so critical? Groothuis: For most of church history women were denied equal status with men because it was held that women were simply inferior persons, by God’s design. Then later in the 20th century the church came to believe that God did not create woman to be personally inferior to man; yet the submission texts were still understood to exclude women from equal participation in the church and in the home, especially with respect to any activities deemed spiritually authoritative. But this left dangling the question: why should an equal person be excluded from key areas of human activity and ministry? To reconcile this conflict, the equal in being/unequal in role construct was devised. This is the linchpin of the patriarchal-complementarian enterprise. They must be able to uphold equality of being alongside inferiority in role, and this hermeneutical device is the widely-accepted way of reconciling these two propositions. Yet in my chapter I show that it simply is not logically possible to have women be both equal and unequal in this way.
Because of its rationale as intrinsic to God’s original creation design, and its nature as necessary, permanent, and grounded in woman’s unalterable ontology, woman’s inferior “role” does not fit the definition of a role. Calling woman’s subordination a mere “role” or “function” serves as a rhetorical decoy that makes woman’s subordination to man’s authority appear compatible with woman’s full spiritual and ontological equality with man. Herein lies its appeal. It appears to resolve the conflict between equality and inequality. But, as I argue in chapter 18, if this “role” is biblically mandated for all women for all time, then it logically entails women’s fundamental inferiority in being and not merely in function. Yet we know from Scripture that man and woman are created equal in being. Thus woman’s subordination is contradicted by woman’s equality. We cannot, as the saying goes, have our cake and eat it too, when it comes to acknowledging women as equals while we keep them in their “place.” And it won’t do to insist that even if it’s not logical it must be true because the Bible says so. Not even God can make a logical contradiction true. And if it can’t be true, then it can’t be biblical.
Hoover: Opponents of your point of view often suggest that egalitarianism inevitably leads to liberalism in the church. How do you respond to that charge?
Groothuis: This charge seems to be more a perception of guilt by association than anything else. The concern appears to be that because theologically liberal churches ordain women to leadership ministries, then any church that allows women to serve in pastoral leadership is therefore liberal or destined to become theologically liberal. But this is an emotionally-laden impression, not a well-reasoned conclusion. In fact, the reasons that liberal churches ordain women to pastoral leadership are not the reasons that biblical egalitarians believe women should be permitted to serve alongside men. Because theological liberalism denies the full inspiration and authority of the Bible, liberal churches ordain women not primarily because of what the Bible does or does not say, but primarily because gender equality is culturally acceptable and relevant. But this is doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
We believe it is the right thing for churches to permit women whom the Spirit has gifted and called to serve in leadership ministry alongside men without restriction based on gender. We believe this because the Bible affirms the gifts and ministries and priesthood of all believers in Christ, regardless of gender or any other social or physical difference. As long as our views regarding gender equality are based on the reasoned belief that the fully inspired and authoritative Word of God affirms women’s equal status in marriage and ministry, we will not even get close to stepping onto that dire slippery slope to theological liberalism. All the chapters in DBE are grounded in and consistent with a high view of biblical authority.
Hoover: The other charge I often hear is that the sort of reasoning that is used to defend egalitarianism leads to acceptance of homosexuality. How do you respond to this charge?
Groothuis: When one applies to the texts on homosexuality the hermeneutic that evangelicals use in deriving gender equality from the biblical texts, the clear conclusion is that, although the traditional ban on women in leadership should be abandoned, the scriptural ban on homosexuality should be retained. This is because the Bible itself treats these two issues in diametrically different ways. DBE has an entire chapter explicating these watershed differences. I will mention just a couple of quick examples: In Paul’s sin lists he repeatedly includes homosexual acts. He never lists women preachers. He does, however commend women who served in leadership and teaching ministries, and women leaders are cited approvingly throughout Scripture. By contrast, nowhere in Scripture does homosexual behavior of any kind come in for any commendation; the Bible never mentions homosexuality except to censure it. Heterosexual monogamy is clearly the biblical norm (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:1-2).
Hoover: What surprises do you think readers will find in this book?
Groothuis: Those who are convinced that biblical equality is simply a Christianized spin-off of contemporary “feminist” culture may be surprised to notice that from cover to cover, DBE makes the case for biblical equality based on what the Bible teaches and never on what feminism teaches. Only once is feminism appealed to as the basis for an argument: In chapter 24 the precepts of 19th century classical feminism are invoked to argue against the ideology of “abortion rights”—which may also surprise some people!
Many opponents of biblical equality who stopped paying attention to biblical arguments for gender equality some time in the 1970s or 1980s may be surprised to find that evangelical egalitarian scholarship has made some significant strides in recent years. The approach to Scripture is more rigorous and more holistic (as opposed to focusing exclusively on a few verses). Readers will also find egalitarian exposition of Scripture by scholars who are not known for their defense of biblical equality, but are simply setting forth a careful interpretation of the text’s meaning. Readers will have to come to terms with the fact that some of the most respected names in evangelical scholarship (such as Gordon Fee and Craig Keener) are solidly, rationally and biblically in support of biblical equality.
Hoover: Gordon Fee served as contributing editor to this volume. Would you like to say a little more about the role he played in the development
of this project?
Groothuis: He played a tremendous and indispensable role, writing four stellar chapters and giving very close editorial attention to all the chapters addressing New Testament themes. The book would not be what it now is, if we had not had the benefit of Gordon’s invaluable contribution.
Hoover: How might this book be used in a classroom setting?
Groothuis: It would serve well as a main textbook for any class addressing the gender debate in evangelicalism. It could also be used as a supplemental text for classes in Christian ethics, theology or practical theology.
Hoover: What are your hopes for this book?
Groothuis: My hope is that Discovering Biblical Equality will receive a wide and fair reading in and beyond the evangelical world. I hope and pray that many will hear and heed its liberating message that men and women can and should minister to the glory of God by the power of the Spirit according to their gifts and abilities. When believers in Christ come to understand that women stand before God with the same responsibilities and privileges as men, then the church will not be hampered by any perceived need to keep women subordinate but will instead be more fully empowered by the Spirit as all members of the Body are able to pursue the ministries to which God has called them. The mission of biblical equality is not simply to empower women as individuals, but to empower the church as the Body of Christ on this earth.
Jim Hoover of InterVarsity Press interviews Rebecca Merrill Groothuis on Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, ed. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis (IVP, 2005, 528 pages, $25.00).
Hoover: With so many books out there on the subject of men and women in the church, what was the impetus for this project? What makes it stand out from others in the field?
Groothuis: There seemed to be a clear need for a single resource that covered the main issues and arguments for biblical equality. Also, I wanted people to see that biblical equality makes sense from every angle; it’s not just a matter of exegeting a few controversial biblical proof texts (or, in some cases, “proof words”). The truth of Scripture regarding biblical equality is confirmed and demonstrated across many disciplines. It seemed this would be seen most clearly if we had a number of authors write from the perspectives of various disciplines. In making the depth and breadth of the case for biblical equality evident in this way, Discovering Biblical Equality stands alone.
Hoover: You've subtitled the book "Complementarity Without Hierarchy." Is that just deliberately provocative, or is there something substantive that you are trying to get at?
Groothuis: It is not intended to be deliberately provocative, but it does make a point—namely, that the idea of male-female complementarity is not the issue at stake in the gender debate; indeed, the concept fits as well with gender equality as with gender hierarchy. It is axiomatic that male and female are complementary; that is, they complete and correspond to one another. This is clear from the Genesis creation story. What is not clear from Genesis or anywhere else in Scripture is exactly how God created man and woman to be different from one another, outside of the obvious anatomical differences. Nor are we able to determine innate gender differences from science, due to the fact that cultural influences can never be eliminated from any experimental design. The Mars and Venus self-help books—whether secular or evangelical—do not give us this information either.
However, biblical egalitarians are persuaded that the Bible does not teach an inbuilt, God-ordained hierarchy of male authority and female subordination as an essential difference between male and female. The purpose of Discovering Biblical Equality (DBE) is to show that, according to Scripture, all believers are free to exercise their gifts in Christian ministry, to discern and follow the will of God for their own lives, and to teach the truths of Scripture to others—without the bestowal of prerogatives on some and the withholding of opportunities from others solely on the basis of one’s gender.
Hoover: Becca, your article "Equal in Being, Unequal in Role" tackles head on a major premise of those who challenge the notion of biblical equality without hierarchy. Why do you think this stock response has so much appeal? Why do you think this issue is so critical? Groothuis: For most of church history women were denied equal status with men because it was held that women were simply inferior persons, by God’s design. Then later in the 20th century the church came to believe that God did not create woman to be personally inferior to man; yet the submission texts were still understood to exclude women from equal participation in the church and in the home, especially with respect to any activities deemed spiritually authoritative. But this left dangling the question: why should an equal person be excluded from key areas of human activity and ministry? To reconcile this conflict, the equal in being/unequal in role construct was devised. This is the linchpin of the patriarchal-complementarian enterprise. They must be able to uphold equality of being alongside inferiority in role, and this hermeneutical device is the widely-accepted way of reconciling these two propositions. Yet in my chapter I show that it simply is not logically possible to have women be both equal and unequal in this way.
Because of its rationale as intrinsic to God’s original creation design, and its nature as necessary, permanent, and grounded in woman’s unalterable ontology, woman’s inferior “role” does not fit the definition of a role. Calling woman’s subordination a mere “role” or “function” serves as a rhetorical decoy that makes woman’s subordination to man’s authority appear compatible with woman’s full spiritual and ontological equality with man. Herein lies its appeal. It appears to resolve the conflict between equality and inequality. But, as I argue in chapter 18, if this “role” is biblically mandated for all women for all time, then it logically entails women’s fundamental inferiority in being and not merely in function. Yet we know from Scripture that man and woman are created equal in being. Thus woman’s subordination is contradicted by woman’s equality. We cannot, as the saying goes, have our cake and eat it too, when it comes to acknowledging women as equals while we keep them in their “place.” And it won’t do to insist that even if it’s not logical it must be true because the Bible says so. Not even God can make a logical contradiction true. And if it can’t be true, then it can’t be biblical.
Hoover: Opponents of your point of view often suggest that egalitarianism inevitably leads to liberalism in the church. How do you respond to that charge?
Groothuis: This charge seems to be more a perception of guilt by association than anything else. The concern appears to be that because theologically liberal churches ordain women to leadership ministries, then any church that allows women to serve in pastoral leadership is therefore liberal or destined to become theologically liberal. But this is an emotionally-laden impression, not a well-reasoned conclusion. In fact, the reasons that liberal churches ordain women to pastoral leadership are not the reasons that biblical egalitarians believe women should be permitted to serve alongside men. Because theological liberalism denies the full inspiration and authority of the Bible, liberal churches ordain women not primarily because of what the Bible does or does not say, but primarily because gender equality is culturally acceptable and relevant. But this is doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
We believe it is the right thing for churches to permit women whom the Spirit has gifted and called to serve in leadership ministry alongside men without restriction based on gender. We believe this because the Bible affirms the gifts and ministries and priesthood of all believers in Christ, regardless of gender or any other social or physical difference. As long as our views regarding gender equality are based on the reasoned belief that the fully inspired and authoritative Word of God affirms women’s equal status in marriage and ministry, we will not even get close to stepping onto that dire slippery slope to theological liberalism. All the chapters in DBE are grounded in and consistent with a high view of biblical authority.
Hoover: The other charge I often hear is that the sort of reasoning that is used to defend egalitarianism leads to acceptance of homosexuality. How do you respond to this charge?
Groothuis: When one applies to the texts on homosexuality the hermeneutic that evangelicals use in deriving gender equality from the biblical texts, the clear conclusion is that, although the traditional ban on women in leadership should be abandoned, the scriptural ban on homosexuality should be retained. This is because the Bible itself treats these two issues in diametrically different ways. DBE has an entire chapter explicating these watershed differences. I will mention just a couple of quick examples: In Paul’s sin lists he repeatedly includes homosexual acts. He never lists women preachers. He does, however commend women who served in leadership and teaching ministries, and women leaders are cited approvingly throughout Scripture. By contrast, nowhere in Scripture does homosexual behavior of any kind come in for any commendation; the Bible never mentions homosexuality except to censure it. Heterosexual monogamy is clearly the biblical norm (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:1-2).
Hoover: What surprises do you think readers will find in this book?
Groothuis: Those who are convinced that biblical equality is simply a Christianized spin-off of contemporary “feminist” culture may be surprised to notice that from cover to cover, DBE makes the case for biblical equality based on what the Bible teaches and never on what feminism teaches. Only once is feminism appealed to as the basis for an argument: In chapter 24 the precepts of 19th century classical feminism are invoked to argue against the ideology of “abortion rights”—which may also surprise some people!
Many opponents of biblical equality who stopped paying attention to biblical arguments for gender equality some time in the 1970s or 1980s may be surprised to find that evangelical egalitarian scholarship has made some significant strides in recent years. The approach to Scripture is more rigorous and more holistic (as opposed to focusing exclusively on a few verses). Readers will also find egalitarian exposition of Scripture by scholars who are not known for their defense of biblical equality, but are simply setting forth a careful interpretation of the text’s meaning. Readers will have to come to terms with the fact that some of the most respected names in evangelical scholarship (such as Gordon Fee and Craig Keener) are solidly, rationally and biblically in support of biblical equality.
Hoover: Gordon Fee served as contributing editor to this volume. Would you like to say a little more about the role he played in the development
of this project?
Groothuis: He played a tremendous and indispensable role, writing four stellar chapters and giving very close editorial attention to all the chapters addressing New Testament themes. The book would not be what it now is, if we had not had the benefit of Gordon’s invaluable contribution.
Hoover: How might this book be used in a classroom setting?
Groothuis: It would serve well as a main textbook for any class addressing the gender debate in evangelicalism. It could also be used as a supplemental text for classes in Christian ethics, theology or practical theology.
Hoover: What are your hopes for this book?
Groothuis: My hope is that Discovering Biblical Equality will receive a wide and fair reading in and beyond the evangelical world. I hope and pray that many will hear and heed its liberating message that men and women can and should minister to the glory of God by the power of the Spirit according to their gifts and abilities. When believers in Christ come to understand that women stand before God with the same responsibilities and privileges as men, then the church will not be hampered by any perceived need to keep women subordinate but will instead be more fully empowered by the Spirit as all members of the Body are able to pursue the ministries to which God has called them. The mission of biblical equality is not simply to empower women as individuals, but to empower the church as the Body of Christ on this earth.
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