This is the third post in this second segment of Mark Baddeley’s series on complementarianism and egalitarianism. (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9.)
We have been considering some of the reasons why there may be some moves out of the egalitarian ‘camp’ in the foreseeable future—say, over the next twenty years or so. In this post we’ll consider the problems that arise when champions of women’s ordination cease to campaign for their cause, but have to rule on the basis of it, and conclude in the next by considering how complementarians can respond to these opportunities.
The pressures on egalitarians we have discussed will be reinforced as egalitarians have to increasingly move from being champions of conscience to wielders of institutional authority. Many egalitarians have enjoyed holding the ‘nice’ position in the debate—they aren’t saying ‘no’ to anybody or championing restrictions. They are asking for freedom—freedom to practice according to their conscience and not be restricted by others who believe differently. They were fighting against tradition and for greater freedom for conscience and for a whole gender. And while church structures didn’t permit women’s ordination they could argue for the freedom to practice their conscience. They could both champion their position and champion the right of conscience simultaneously.
But now that dioceses and denominations are looking at women bishops (or their equivalents), egalitarians have to decide whether conscience or equality is the ultimate good. They either have to connive at second-class women bishops to uphold freedom of conscience for objectors, or they have to support requirements to not ordain candidates who could not in conscience submit to a woman bishop.
Either way, a tension arises for those egalitarian evangelicals who believed that their cause was both about freedom of conscience, and about basic justice for women. Once their ‘side’ has the reigns of power, one of those two poles has to give way. They either have to offer freedom of conscience to complementarians—which means that they don’t really believe that women’s ordination is about basic justice like slavery or apartheid (because no-one would offer freedom of conscience on such serious moral topics). Or they don’t offer freedom of conscience, in which case, they deny to others what they demanded for themselves—freedom of conscience in this matter to act on their convictions.
If, as has been rumoured, some of those Dioceses moving towards electing a woman bishop have been running an unwritten policy of not ordaining candidates who cannot submit to a women bishop, then at least some egalitarians will be unsettled by the fact that their ‘side’ is less tolerant of dissent than the other side was in power—for egalitarianism can only get a foothold when a pre-existing institution does not make holding to complementarianism a condition for ordination. So egalitarianism is only ever a possibility due to the willingness of complementarians to create space for egalitarians in the first place in institutional life. Not even deepest darkest Sydney Diocese, a place that everyone knows is synonymous with intolerance (yes, that was irony, in case your senses need some tweaking), requires ordination candidates to believe in complementarianism.
At least some egalitarians will draw back from an intolerant tolerance, or will decide that women having access to all forms of public ministry is not an issue of basic justice. And in that decision they will begin the first step of what could be a long journey out of egalitarianism altogether. For if it is not a ‘gospel issue’, why keep dividing the church over it, especially in those contexts where evangelicalism needs every hand on deck?
As a one time member of a Canadian church which had a Sydney diocese mininster, the situation is much more complex than this.
The Canadian church ordains women fully since women missionaries were licensed as lay readers during the war and eventually their leadership was recognised and honoured. There is a long history to the ordination of women, and in addition the best known conservative evangelical preacher in British Columbia was a woman who died a few years ago.
So really, the church here never thought to ask the minister from Sydney if he supported the ordination of women. Just never thought to ask.
To cut a long story short, I deeply regret that I was exposed to the complementarian teaching of the Sydney diocese. I mistakenly assumed that I would be safe in an Anglican church in this country.
I would like you to realize that very real damage is cause where the rulership of a husband is taught and no support is offered to women. Who is a priority here, clearly the husband and his rulership
And the gradual but steady removal of women from leadership was also unhappy. Please realize that there is a tremendous cost to complementarianism and women are paying it.
What about the possibility of complementarians who “cannot in conscience submit to a woman bishop” figuring out that they don’t have to agree to the ordination of said bishop to submit to her—just as they don’t have to have voted for the current president in order to submit to that president. If the situation were that a man was appointed as bishop whom they didn’t personally think should have been ordained (suppose there were character issues, for example), would they still be unable “in conscience” to submit to the ordained, duly appointed male bishop? Or would they be able to “bite the bullet” and say, “I don’t agree that he should have been ordained, but I’ll respect the action of my church and submit to him anyway, rather than leave the church”? If this would be the case, then they would have no standing to refuse to submit to a woman bishop “in conscience,” would they?
In short, I’m not really sure why an egalitarian church should bend over backward in this area. It is well within the teachings of Christianity that a Christian should respect the authority of someone, even if they don’t agree that this is the person who should be in authority.
Er, Mark, it’s rather cute that you can argue that complementarians, who <i>by definition</i> don’t support women in positions of authority, are really the tolerant ones after all; especially when you ground your case in “rumours” of “unwritten policy” … ! How many female bishops have they appointed?
Nevertheless, there are none so pure as those without power, as the saying (?) goes.
I’m not sure the definition of “tolerance” is to let people exercise institutionalized sexism should they wish, however the question of whether it should be privileged or protected is an interesting one.
Certainly, if you lived in an apartheid regime where racial egalitarianism was not possible, you’d first want space to exercise your own conscience if nothing else, but once in power how would you accommodate those who would absolute reject a black president?
It’s an apt analogy. For example, if we play a game when we substitute “black” for “female” and see what results we get…
“I don’t want to be led by a black person.”
“I don’t want a black person to be in a position of authority over me.”
“Black people are equal, but different.”
“Black people can preach to other blacks, but not to mixed congregations.”
… they’re not pretty. If it sounds racist in one context, I suspect it’s sexist in another.
Therefore, given (I would hope) egalitarianism will eventually prevail, the question of whether one legislates, or accommodates, is certainly a thorny one. Seriously, how would you suggest those who held a minority view in apartheid situations be accommodated?
In any case, the idea that this issue will result in a move <i>away</i> from egalitarianism seems like wishful thinking, much like the idea that realizing racism was bad somehow would lead to anyone saying “Oh well, we may as well put up with it!”
The argument goes like this. One can’t help being a woman, but being complemnetarian is a choice.
For example, we could say that everyone with a big toe shorter than their second toe, has to obey everyone who has big toe longer than their second toe. We could organize society by big toe length.
But we could conversely organize society to say that all those who wish to have big toe hierarchy, have to be quiet about it, big toe hierarchy will not be tolersated.
Which is a tolerant society, the one which tolerates big toe hierarchy as choice, or the socieity that wants to hush up those who believe in big toe hierarchy?
This approach sounds a lot like the way of world governments. If group A is “in power” then they get to choose which laws they want to keep and which to expel. And of course there is a lot of slandering of the opposing group. When Group B is in control, they they get to throw out the things they didn’t like and install their own doctrines upon the masses.
Somehow this doesn’t square with Biblical pictures of the unity of the Body of Christ or of the purpose of being of one Body. Is Christ’s body of believers supposed to be unified upon perfect understanding, a perfect understanding of which only Christ could contain? The question is how do we live together without trying to control one another and harm one another.
Firstly, Christianity, regardless of the label with which its been branded, has always needed “all hands on deck”. Actually I prefer the biblical metaphor of fishermen (I’m using man in its generic sense of “person” here). The Great Commission has no “get out” clauses for women or any other group within Christianity.
This is a false dichotomy.
It’s not about a decision between equality or conscience as “the ultimate good” (I personally find the subtle insinuation that egalitarians must all be utilitarians a little insulting, maybe I’m supersensitive) but about following Christ. Many egalitarians genuinely believe that scripture doesn’t support defining roles in life or worship based on gender.
For many, an egalitarian worldview is the only one that is consistent with the Gospel.
I have to agree. As an aside this post of Mark’s is the most Jesuitical approach to the debate I’ve seen in a very long time.
Hello Suzanne and welcome along,
Thank you for your contribution. Given that, IIRC from my occasional glances at Jean’s recent thread, this all hits home for your own lifestory a lot, I’ll try and be sensitive in interacting with what you’ve said, without treating you as though you need kid’s gloves.
Depending on what you mean by ‘rulership of a husband’ and ‘no support is offered to women’ I’ll be somewhere in between ‘very strong agreement’ and ‘very strong disagreement’. I’m not interested in setting up marriages on some kind of analogy of a master-slave relationship, nor parent-child relationships on that model.
If that’s what you’re saying complementarians have to avoid, I agree. If you’re saying that that just is what complementarianism is, then I disagree.
This is where tempers could probably really fly, but I would say that there is a tremendous cost to egalitarianism as well, and it is being paid by women, men, and children.
I’m happy to accept that there is a cost to complementarianism, but I am of the view that everything comes with a price tag, and it’s rare to find egalitarians who see their position is anything other than the Great Silver Bullet to life in community.
I am the child of separated (and effectively divorced) parents. Their attempt to run their marriage on some kind of egalitarian lines was IMO undoubtedly a factor in that break-up. There’s four of us (two parents, two kids) who have paid a steep price for that. Is that worth noting? Yes. Does it disprove egalitarianism? I doubt it.
This is where things like the book that Tim Keller mentioned is important (and follow the discussion under that between Teri, Kristen and I for some thoughts on it).
Many of us have experiences that are extreme, and that matter, and those experiences can contradict each other. When working at the level of experience I think the best way forward is to look at the kind of footprint that something normally makes on a statistical basis.
Brad Wilcox’s contention seems to be that ‘soft patriarchy’ is actually doing (slightly) better on (most) fronts compared to egalitarianism when it comes to the vision of the ‘New Man’ that is currently being seen as the Christian ideal in evangelical circles. Most women married to husbands who have a complementarian approach to their marriage and are actively Christian seem to be enjoying better marriages slightly more often than their egalitarian counterparts. Both are also associated with experiences like yours and like mine, and the degree of difference is only small, but the outcomes at present are slightly better among evangelical complementarians in the U.S.
As I said in the other thread, that doesn’t prove anything. But it needs to be factored in alongside the concrete experiences that people like you and me can testify to.
Hi Kristen,
I’m not sure that’s the analogy. I might think that Joe rather than Frank should have been chosen to be pastor or bishop, in the same way that someone might vote for the Republican/Democratic/Independent candidate for presidency.
But for complementarians this more like saying, “This guy isn’t qualified to be president – he wasn’t born in the U.S., he’s too young, he was born here but he relinquished his citizenship and is no longer a citizen, he was convicted of a felony (I assume that is a provision for the U.S.)”. And then finding that the courts interpret the constitutional provisions to say that they don’t, and never did, mean that, and that Congress and the Senate accept that ruling.
Many Americans would be torn at this stage – some would say, de facto he’s the president even if he’s ineligible de jure we just have to submit to the authority that God, through history, has put over us. Others will say, “No, this is a betrayal of our responsibilities as American citizens – he doesn’t have legitimate authority.”
The problem with your analogy, and I think egalitarians often make it, is to compare being a woman with being a sinner. And that’s not really the analogy, although I agree that when used very carefully it can shed some light on some aspects.
That’s where people are torn, and there’s a variety of views that Anglicans who get around would be aware of as this often affects us.
Some people will not submit to the authority of a bishop who is openly immoral or openly apostate. Others will, along the lines you argue.
But the problem intensifies when a Diocese or Denomination, says, “sexual immorality, denial of cardinal doctrines, active sexual orientation, gender are not factors in whether someone should be a bishop/pastor”. Many Christians who might submit to the odd bishop who gets through the system and doesn’t meet the requirements see that it is a different story when the institution is not just making one bad decision about one individual, but is actually changing doctrine and practice.
J.I. Packer would probably be an example of that. I think he agreed with Stott in Stott’s disagreement with Lloyd-Jones that Anglican evangelicals needed to leave a denomination with heretical leaders in it because the odd liberal bishop was not the repudiation of confessional anglicanism. But now he is prepared to leave because liberalism is now being avowed in the decisions and motions of synods at the highest levels.
Yes, but I think it’s more complex than that, as I’ve indicated. For Christians also have a responsibility to not recognise some claims to authority, as well as to submit to authorities they disagree with but who do validly have authority.
And I’m not saying egalitarians should make any allowances for us compelementarian throwbacks – you guys will come to different conclusions on that just as we have.
I’m saying egalitarians are going to have to choose to not fully implement their egalitarian principles or see many/most complementarians leave. And that either will have a cost. That’s all. They are now faced with same choice complementarianism has been faced with – make allowances for dissenters or be ‘mean’. And they’ll have probably the same kind of fallout as complementarians have had from making that decision, whichever way they jump (because comps have jumped both ways on that decision as well).
OK Mark! Now you’re doing one of your strange twists. First egals don’t use that analogy. They complain that gender hierarchalists use it. And you saying that when used carefully it can shed light on some aspects implies that some aspects of what egal women do as egals is sinful. And that is just another thing in the whole ‘debate’ that is just deeply offensive. Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us plainly, so that we can defend ourselves, what activities of mutual submission are sinful in your opinion.
”But the problem intensifies when a Diocese or Denomination, says, “sexual immorality, denial of cardinal doctrines, active sexual orientation, gender are not factors in whether someone should be a bishop/pastor”. Many Christians who might submit to the odd bishop who gets through the system and doesn’t meet the requirements see that it is a different story when the institution is not just making one bad decision about one individual, but is actually changing doctrine and practice.”
Sexual immorality, denial of cardinal doctrines, active sexual orientation, ARE factors in whether someone should be a bishop/pastor. And they should remain factors. Gender should not be a factor. Even someone weak in logic can see that gender is not equal to those three factors.
”Christians also have a responsibility to not recognise some claims to authority, as well as to submit to authorities they disagree with but who do validly have authority.”
And Kristen’s point is that a woman elected to any position has valid authority even if one disagrees with whether women should exercise church authority. It would not be a false claim of authority.
”I’m saying egalitarians are going to have to choose to not fully implement
their egalitarian principles or see many/most complementarians leave.”
And vice versa. Frankly, women who a church refuses to recognize for the gifts she has and who do not allow her to use them as God is leading her, might do better to change churches.
Thanks for your response, Mark.
<i>Depending on what you mean by ‘rulership of a husband’ and ‘no support is offered to women’ I’ll be somewhere in between ‘very strong agreement’ and ‘very strong disagreement’. I’m not interested in setting up marriages on some kind of analogy of a master-slave relationship, nor parent-child relationships on that model.
If that’s what you’re saying complementarians have to avoid, I agree. If you’re saying that that just is what complementarianism is, then I disagree.</i>
In this case, I am talking about what really happened. CBMW has posted the definition of complementarianism and egalitarianism, by Bruce Ware. THis explicitly teachers the rulership of the husband. I am not making this up.
The Sydney diocese minister here worked closely with Bruce Ware. This is reality.
No help was ever offered for abused wives. This is a fact.
I am saying that the facts are that the rulership of the husband was supported and women were not supported.
The cost of complementarianism is no women.
Regarding “soft patriarchy” if that applies to women staying home when the children are young, I do not see this as hierarchy. I have no trouble with differeing roles, if it is voluntaty.
The rulership of the husband is extremely cruel, and unless the Sydney diocese is willing to repudiate those who teach this, they are responsible for the fact that in some homes, women are treated as less than human.
I would like to see this addressed in reality. I would like an apology by everyone associated with the teaching of the rulerhip of the husband to repudiate this and think about the cost to women and their children in these homes.
I would then like to be able to forget that I had ever heard of complementarianism. I don’t want to associate God with something this cruel.
I am sorry that you came from a broken home as well. But complementarianims does not reduce the incidence of divorce. It simply makes divorce more difficult for women and their children.
I wrote,
“The cost of complementarianism is no women.”
“I meant to say that The cost of complementarianism is to women”
Women are the ones who suffer more, who pay more, who give up more. It is to the advantage of the men to have more power. Men should be ashamed of treating women this way, and making women be the ones who have to pay the cost, more than men.
Since Christianity should be modeling the sacrifice of power that Christ made, men should make sure that they bear the brunt of the testimony of Christianity. Men should ensure that non-Christians see men as the ones who are sacrificing.
As it stands now, non-Christians are horrified at the way some Christian men are treating women, and making the sacrifice be on the shoulders of women first and foremost. That is the visible testimony of the church right now – greater cost to women.
This is how Christianity looks right now.
Just picking up on Brad Wilcox’s work and the U.S. cultural context that gets lost in these debates…
One of the things I find odd/cute/hypocritical with Sydneysiders proudly proclaiming complementarianism is how lame we generally are at it. It’s not a co-incidence that most of the more aggressive gender politics comes from the Land of the Polarized Extremes, yet U.S. culture is given almost no consideration in these debates. It’s all about the bible right? Hardly—U.S. culture wars are perhaps the most influential force in this debate (on either side), yet out of (ignorance? indifference?) we happily ignore it.
But the CBMW, Albert Mohler, the Southern Baptists etc… these guys know their conservatism! They engage in the full scale culture wars on its behalf! We don’t have anything like that in Sydney (or Australia) for which we can be very thankful. After all, the U.S. religious right are the intellectual luminaries who gave us GWB, AiG, ID, and more things not conducive to acronyms.
So, I find it kind of quaint/naive in Sydney where we get riled up about gender issues, when we’re far more monocultural (in WASP circles), far less polarized (the U.S. is so polarized they can develop reality TV shows on the difference – e.g. Wife Swap et al) and, let’s face it, far more egalitarian. It really looks more than a bit hypocritical when culturally we enjoy the fruits of equality that feminism delivered in our private & professional lives, but in the church we have these vaguely reactionary views that women should be kept out of power/authority. How does that make sense?
In some Sydney circles we might talk a good game, but it ends up just as a question of what women do in ministry, and I think that’s part of why it seems so arbitrary and hypocritical—there’s minimal evidence people take their gender views particularly seriously outside of a church context (certainly not like the Americans!), and as Michael Jensen recently said “Amongst complementarian Christians that I know, marriages are remarkably egalitarian.”
We’re all egalitarian now, some of us are just yet to fully realize it
I suppose that it is possible that some men who preach that women have to submit in ALL things, are actually living in an egalitarian marriage. However, they don’t communicate that to their audience, and some men, those who want total control, take this doctrine as a ready made power tool.
Suzanne, yes, certainly if you preach patriarchy you would want to be *very* careful about how it’s understood, but in my experience in Sydney even those with strong gender views treat it as such an academic exercise that outside of a church setting most people are pragmatically egalitarian—even the professed complementarians. Says a lot about the strength of the position imo. (I’m not sure people could even answer the question “What does complementarianism look like outside of church?”) It’s just a shame they don’t let such pragmatism guide them within the church!
Luke
I am dealing with actual facts. I am talking about the ministry of someone from the Sydney diocese. I am saying that the facts are quite simple. Women were taught to submit in ALL things. Most women just listened to the sermon and carried on with their life.
However, no support was ever provided for abused women. This is the fact.
In my experience, among those women I actually know, women who come from patriarchal Christian communities, 20% experience criminal violence. However, most of this is hushed up.
So women in healthy marriages carried on an egal lifestyle, and women in abusive marriages suffered violence to their body and soul. I am ashamed to think of my many years in the church. I can’t think of any defense for this kind of teaching.
If this is about Christianity, there should be absolutely no power grab by men over women.
I consider all my contact with the complementarian church to be absolutely tragic. I just don’t understand how some men can be the cause of women suffering and call this Christianity. I just don’t understand.
Mark, you said:
You were talking about qualifications, or lack thereof, to minister. And whatever you meant by the above, what it really comes down to is that as far as ever being considered qualified to minister, there is no difference between a woman and an unbeliever, a heretic, or an immoral person. It might be kinder to equate a woman in this situation with a new believer or a child—but you are quite correct in not making this analogy, because a new believer or a child might one day be considered qualified, given age and learning—but a woman might as well be an immoral person, a heretic or an unbeliever, because she will never be qualified. And a church that would qualify her is no different in most complementarians’ minds than a church that would qualify a heretic or an unbeliever, etc.
Frankly, this is insulting to me as a woman. You said this comparison was only an analogy, and not a proper one at that—but then the way you used it seems to me to accurately describe the way many complementarians do think about this issue. So how do comps avoid the charge of sexism? In an earlier post, you simply said that the issue was that the church is equatable to a family, and that a church needs men to be ministers in the same way a family needs men to be fathers. I found this much easier to swallow. But you never fully addressed my reponse that a family also needs mothers, and that therefore a church also needs women ministers, and not just for women—unless in a family, the boys don’t need mothers; only the girls do.
I think that the very real difference between being a woman and having the other disqualifications that the Scriptures give for ministry, is a pretty good clue that there is a misreading of Scripture going on. Being a woman is nothing like being an unbeliever, a heretic or an immoral person. The disqualification of women on no other basis than that of being women, is a therefore a fundamental injustice.
Suzanne,
I continue to read your contributions with quite a bit of sadness. Obviously you have had some very bad experiences in terms of what has happened to you and what you have seen happening in your church. We must always stand against abuse of women as it is always a shameful, disgusting and cowardly act.
Acknowledging this, I’m concerned in regards to some of what you wrote and a perceived general undertone to your posts, please tell me if I’ve misunderstood you. As an example of what you wrote:
If this is about Christianity, there should be absolutely no power grab by men over women.’
Depending on what you wrote I can either disagree or agree. All authority ultimately comes from God (Rom 13:1). If all authority comes from God, then God is the one who parcels out positions to all people. This verse will be read by both egals and comps as supporting their case, because they read their own authority structure into the verse and think the other side is rebelling against the authority of God.
I’m not actually arguing for either position in this case (I’m complementarian), but arguing against your perceived attacks on authority. All men and women must submit to authority in some way or another. The bible is clear again and again that we are submit to authority and not reject the authorities, whether they be creation or institutional authority (1 Peter 2:13-3:7). It is interesting in the case of 1 Peter that the example of Christ’s submission to unjust authority is given in the section to slaves, those with the least authority. So to grab authority is sinful, but to rebel against authority is also sinful.
Sin rejects God’s authority and says no-one is allowed to have authority except me (Gen 3). I use Genesis 3 because it is a case of God’s order being over-tuned by his creation, that is by both men and women together (though the man is held primarily responsible for the fall (Rom 5:12; 1 Tim 2:14)). If men have abused authority this does not automatically mean men have not been given authority. Personally I don’t like having authority as I’ve learnt from the bible that authority from God comes with a double helping of responsibility (James 3:1). People will always abuse authority this side of God’s judgement, that is the cause of a great deal of suffering and will continue to be until Christ’s return (1 Peter 3:8-16). But as Christians we must submit to all authorities, and most especially the ones God has instituted as a witness to the good news and the hope we have in Christ Jesus.
So in conclusions my point is this, just because people misuse or abuse authority doesn’t make the authority structure wrong on non-existant. The misuse or abuse of authority is a by product of sin. We should always point out abuses of authority when we see them. But the abuses in of themselves do not cancel out the authority structures.
We must always try to read our experiences through our theology, and not let our our theology be shaped by our experience. Whether you agree with this or not I hope you understand this is written with the greatest sadness and desire for the both of us to grow in godliness of our Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:9-11).
Adam,
1 Peter 2:13, which you cited above, clearly states that all the authority structures you just listed are “human institutions.” There is no indication that these “human institutions” are divine structures. Egalitarians in general would say that the Kingdom of God is not about human institutions of authority, but is rather to be marked by “the greatest among you shall be your servant.”
The issue is not, “where does authority lie in human institutions,” but “where does authority lie in the Kingdom of God?” Jesus said “All authority has been given to Me,” and then sent the apostles out in His authority. The New Covenant envisions a family of brothers and sisters, with God as the Father, and Jesus as the Firstborn. Everyone else in the Kingdom has the status of a non-firstborn sibling, which implies equality of status. Authority in the Kingdom does not appear to be the same as institutional human authority (including the then-existing institution of the “pater familias,” the father as ruler of the home). Authority in the Kingdom appears be centered around the authority of Christ and His teachings, and the authority of the inspired teachings of the apostles. Whoever God gifts to convey His teachings, is to teach in the authority of His word, not in some authority of “office.” There does not appear to be any born-into-it status in the Kingdom; on the contrary, everyone who enters the Kingdom is to do so “as a little child” (a person with no status or authority).
“Offices” were added later by the growing church. The Kingdom as Jesus brought it, was not about Christians obtaining or maintaining authority over one another. They were to submit to the human institutions in which they lived—but there is no indication that those human institutions were divinely sanctioned by God as part of His eternal Kingdom.
Egalitarians in general believe that complementarians in general place way too much emphasis on authority, on who gets to be in charge of whom—when Jesus said, “This is what the Gentiles do, but it shall not be so among you.”
Just so I can understand your position clearly Adam; You would not have supported the abolition of slavery, in either Roman times or 17th/18th century Europe and USA. You would have supported the authority of the slave owners and expected the slaves to submit?
Suzanne, I’m truly sorry to hear about the lack of support for abused women, and the cases of domestic violence you’ve come across. It’s a tragedy indeed when it’s more important to keep up appearances than confront abuse head on (and provide appropriate support), especially in the church, and especially when it’s wrapped up in supposed God-endorsed patriarchy! Nevertheless, I wouldn’t let those who have committed abuse taint your broader view of all complementarian Christians, as I’m sure the vast majority find domestic abuse as abhorrent as you do. That said, wherever we find ourselves, we can and should always be trying to do more to prevent, confront and deal with abuse.
Adam, you say: “Man is held primarily responsible for the fall” and cite 1 Tim 2:14, but 1 Tim 2:14 says:
I would have thought Paul’s point here was quite different—it was the woman who was deceived—and if you take the complementarian view that Paul is making a timeless argument founded in creation, Paul is saying women are inherently more easily deceived, and therefore shouldn’t teach or assume authority over a man, and “must be quiet”.
Again I think this illustrates the hypocrisy of the modern complementarian view (women are inferior on Sundays; fine the rest of the week). For people claiming to uphold the bible even when it’s unfashionable, you guys certainly don’t proclaim this loudly and proudly. Why not?
Hello Kristen and Melinda,
Thank you for your comments Kristen, I never knew how much egals distrust authority (and given the human track record I’m sure it’s with quite some justification).
But Christians are called on to obey human institutions quite often. Every time we are called on to obey the king, we are called to obedience of human institutions, even the bad ones. (Matt. 17:24-26; Col 3:22; 1 Peter 3:13-14 – it is clear Peter refers to human institutions in this verse; Titus 3:1-2; Rom 13:1-7 In Rom 13:6 Christians are commanded to pay taxes, and therefore what Paul has in mind are not just God’s institutions, but human ones). So I must disagree with your take on which institutions we must submit to.
In fact we do submit to human institutions which are inferior to ourselves all the time. Ever stopped at a traffic light? That is people submitting to a human institution for the sake of orderly life. Submitting to abusive authority sends the signal that Christians live in hope of a better life. This is not an excuse for abuse, just that when we are abused we should endure it as sign of the hope we have in Jesus (Acts 5:41).
Melinda I disagree with you at two points, and I think your point is quite cheap. Marriage with its respective order was woven into the created order according to God’s word (Gen 2:20b-25). Just because men have abused and used women horribly does not validate your argument. In fact I went to quite some lengths to point out I disagree with the abuse of women. If you want compare marriage (a creation institution) to slavery (an economic institution) then your argument is not with me but with God. Good luck!
The second is slavery was an abuse of power. The military and economic powers of the day were using their authority to exploit the people of day. God will judge them for the injustices they committed. In-line with this – people were right to stand against this abuse of the power. But following your logic, people should not just have held the governments to account, but completely got rid of governance altogether and brought the world to anarchy. I can not see how the logic of your argument can flow to any other conclusion.
To accuse complementarians (and me) of furthering the cause of slavery through the support or ordered marriage, church and society leads no where and just turns me away from listening to you! You might see marriage and slavery as of the same order, but I don’t and nothing you have said convinces me otherwise. I see them of entirely different levels and certainly do see slavery as an abuse of authority!
In Christ,
Adam Richards.
Hello Luke,
Thank you for your comment against what I wrote, I’m really appreciative of what you wrote. Your comment gets at the heart of the difference for me between egalitarians and complementarians.
Can I start with your last question first – I can not speak for all complementarians as to why they appear quiet to you in regards to this verse. But the reason I don’t say women are inferior is because I don’t believe women are inferior (Gen 1:27). I hold to the equality of men and women most strongly and really do believe if what I do and think actually devalues women (not just because others say I do), then I must change my views and actions. But to this point of time, from what I understand of the bible I have not done this.
In effect what I’m saying is if you want to change my mind you must argue from the bible, reading it with the principles it gives for its comprehension (this is another massive argument that we can’t hash out here).
In fact I think the logic of egalitarians leads to the implication women are inferior, hence why I don’t subscribe to their arguments. Furthermore I see the logic of egalitarian arguments having ramifications far beyond the relations of the sexes.
So going back to the 1 Tim 2:14, I don’t believe Paul is arguing at this point that women are inferior. <b>From what I understand of what you wrote Luke, you equate the functioning of a person with their value.</b> This is what I so strongly object to. The implication you seem to draw from 1 Tim 2:14 is, the woman being spiritually deceived makes her spiritually inferior. And when I see inferior I take it to mean – of less value. I totally disagree with this assessment. Paul does not say she was deceived and therefore she is inferior and of less value. There is nothing in the passage to suggest this. To say otherwise is to read an implication into the passage not supported by the rest of the bible.
A person’s function must be separated from their value. We must guard this distinction most diligently. For the moment we equate ability or function with value then the only people can be equal is if they are exactly same.
This means a woman has to be able to do what a man does to be equal with them. The implication of this line of thought is that women aren’t created equal, but are actually inferior to men because they don’t have the same creation role as men. I stand against this line of reasoning and will always do so.
I object to the implications of egalitarians arguments because IMO they suggest women are created of inferior value. And I certainly don’t believe my wife or my daughter are of less value to any human, and I would have words with anybody who suggests that they are!!
Furthermore – the ramifications of this line of reasoning for the mentally and physically disabled would mean they are of lesser value to rest of humanity because they cannot function at the same level as others. Again I can’t subscribe to this because all people are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27).
All people are created in the image of God and therefore all people are of equal value irrespective of their abilities, gender and so forth (Gen 1:27). This seems to be Paul’s point in Gal 3:26-29.
Luke I don’t believe for a second that any egalitarian actually believes any human is of less value than any another. I have the upmost respect for egalitarians because I believe in the cause they are fighting for. But I don’t believe they have worked through the logic of their own arguments. We might not agree on the arguments or the reasons, but I believe we do share a common goal and that is why I’m willing to listen to any serious egalitarian argument.
But Luke the hypocrisy you see seems to be a product of the way you read the passage. I disagree with your comprehension of the passage and do not believe the implication you draw would be one Paul would agree with or held based on the sum total of what he wrote in the bible. I thank you for the time you took to write your post and really do pray we may both grow into the love and knowledge of Christ together.
Yours In Christ,
Adam.
Adam, in stating that I and other egalitarians “mistrust authority,” you have entirely missed the point. You did not read closely enough what I said. Here’s a quote from myself:
“They were to submit to the human institutions in which they lived— but there is no indication that those human institutions were divinely sanctioned by God as part of His eternal Kingdom.” (emphasis added)
As you can see, I said nothing about Christians not submitting to human institutions—quite the opposite in fact. What I said was that husbandly authority was one of the human institutions of the ancient world. We no longer submit to an emperor. We no longer submit to a king. Those human institutions have passed away. But complementarians want to keep alive the ancient structure of husband-authority, just because it’s in the Bible and Paul and Peter told the Christians who lived under it to submit to it. Neither Paul nor Peter was setting up slaveholding, emperor-rule, or husband-authority as divine structures to be followed for all time as part of the Kingdom of God. The fact that Christians are citizens first of the Kingdom, and only second of their human societies, was meant to alter the way Christians who had human authority related to those under them. No lording it over them. Mutual submission. Laying down your life. No “exasperating.” Being a servant. None of the human authorities of that time had ever heard of such a thing. But it was a way of expressing the Kingdom of God even within those human structures. And it was characterized by a laying down of privilege and position, not of clinging to it.
The structure of the Kingdom is as I have said. God is the Father, Jesus the Firstborn, the rest of us equal-status younger siblings. Human authority structures will all pass away. Most of the authority structures of New Testament times HAVE passed away. Husband-authority is no longer practiced in our modern world. Why should we drag an ancient authority structure back into our lives today?
And please don’t give us that business about “if you argue with me, you’re arguing with God.” Your interpretation is an interpretation—and to be frank, I think it involves a lot of reading stuff into the original Creation account. Nowhere does it ever say Adam was given authority over Eve before the Fall. That’s your interpretation. So no—we’re not arguing with God. We’re arguing with you. And specifically, I’m arguing with your attributing motives to me that you don’t know me well enough to know. I don’t “mistrust authority.” I mistrust the complementarian interpretation, and that’s all.
I don’t know if you realize how patronizing you sound when you ask me if I’ve ever stopped at a traffic light, and don’t I realize I’m obeying authority. I do have enough intelligence to have figured that out for myself. I really have no problem obeying human authority. Why don’t you look a little deeper into what egalitarians believe, before attributing motives and explaining the obvious to us?
Thank you, Adam and Luke for your expressions of sympathy and I know they are sincere.
However, I really needed help when I was attending a complementarian church and none was forthcoming. I am not so much angry at the abuser, as at those who stood by and refused to believe it existed, those who taught the power of men over women without admitting that every man has selfish impulses in him which conflict with the ability to wield power in an unselfish way.
My undertanding is that spiritual leadership is leadership by example.
I have noticed that throughout history men have resisited popery, and established a church of the conscience. Men have overthrown royalty, and established democracy. Men have overthrown slavery and established a voluntary workforce.
In my diocese, Dr. Packer and the ministers from Sydney have forsaken the vows they made to their bishop and set up their own terms of service.
I have only ever seen men model independence from the authorities which have been established over them. The only laws men obey are laws established in a democratic way.
if only I had come to my senses earlier in my life and realized that the men of the Sydney diocese are modeling independence and resistance to authority.
This is the lesson that I have learned from the Sydney diocese. This is the true lesson. It has taken me a long time to become aware of it. it is only in this dialogue with you that I realize what it means to come from Sydney as a man.
I was raised in every way a traditional and obedient Christian woman. But complemetarianism has undone me.
Adam, you said,
What I say is that a woman has to be allowed to do what she is capable of doing, without restriction, as long as it isn’t sin—or she is injustly being treated as an inferior.
Is a man allowed to do whatever he is capable of doing, without restriction, so long as it isn’t sin? In what way, then, is that a “role”? If he has no restrictions on doing what he is capable of doing, then he is not in a “role” as women experience it—as a set of limitations placed on what a woman is allowed to do.
Would you like to be restricted to a limited set of subordinate-only roles in the church and home, while women get to do whatever they please? If not—what about “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”?
Perhaps in Sydney these men are not seen as rebellious. But here, they are most definitely taking a stand against the Canadian church. They do not accept or submit to authority here. They invite a bishop from Sydnet to come here and teach whatever the Aydney diocese believes.
So these complementarian men model rebellion and resistance because they say that the authority of the church here is an abuse of authority.
And I say the same thing about them. They abused their authority. Why doesn’t someone deal with these issues first. Why don’t men model submission to authority first, and then teach women about submission second?
If men from the Sydney diocese really believed what they say about authority, then they would treat women as equals while they were preaching in a Canadian church. This is the stance of the Canadian church. But they don’t. So why do they tell others to do what they do not do themselves?
Hi Adam,
Thanks for the considered response! Unfortunately I think you’ve inadvertently side-stepped my main objection. Your argument is launched from “And when I see inferior I take it to mean – of less value” and I take the point—a disabled person and able-bodied person are of equal value. Fair enough.
However, my point vis a vis Paul’s argument in 1 Tim 2 is a step before that. In the complementarian reading, Paul is saying women are inherently more gullible/persuadable/easily deceived (take your pick). You didn’t seem to object to this—is that what you believe?
To take this example to an extreme end and, to use your example, it would be the same as saying you wouldn’t mind an intellectually disabled kid teaching other disabled kids, but you wouldn’t want them teaching the able-bodied kids. All the kids are of equal value—I agree—but there’s some fairly strong statements of ability there, and ones we know today aren’t true when it comes to women, which is why they can be doctors, lawyers, Prime Ministers and so on.
From Paul’s point of view in the 1st C, a woman’s deceiveability may well have seemed like an empirical, observable, universal truth (hence its grounding in creation) given the opportunities (or lack thereof) women had at the time. However, if you choose to read it this way (as I believe complementarians generally do—ie a universal truth grounded in creation—but feel free to correct me) then it needs to either be applied universally, and not just on a Sunday, or rejected. To hold on to it on Sundays only, while claiming yours is truly the ‘bible based’ position, is hypocritical.
Of course 99% of people—complementarians included—reject this 6 days of the week, which is why I find Mark’s arguments about the retreat from egalitarianism rather a case of wishful thinking. It is in fact complementarianism—with views like those Paul articulates in 1 Tim 2 (*if* you read it that way) that have rightly had to retreat dramatically over the past 50 years, and I don’t think the pressure to retreat further will go away any time soon, not least because of the cognitive dissonance having to believe one thing on Sunday and something else the other 6 days of the week creates.
My 2c
Suzanne, I realize your questions are largely rhetorical, but it brings up an interesting problem with the debate. Here in Sydney we are taught that issues like women’s ordination are not just about women, they’re about the very authority of the bible. (No, they don’t have much of a sense of irony.) Therefore, all options are on the table (so to speak), such is the grave nature of the debate.
This is very unfortunate as it stops people thinking critically about individual issues—either you accept our way of thinking on this particular issue, or you may as well throw the bible out the window… or so the logic goes.
This makes it incredibly hard for people to accept an egalitarian position (even when they live it 6 days a week), because to reject complementarianism is to reject the bible, which is almost to reject the faith. It’s faith that, despite claims to the contrary, is based on a house of cards—remove one card, and it all comes crashing down.
Frankly, I’m glad that in spite of this teaching growing up, and my now l-word (too heinous to say) position on some of these issues, my faith is actually far more robust, precisely because I didn’t accept the all-or-nothing rhetoric that gets bandied about here in Sydney. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the robustness of critical thinking or debate (what debate?) in these parts.
It’s funny how counter-productive such rhetoric is. I wonder how many people walked away altogether because they were told (one way or another) they “don’t believe the bible” for believing in something as otherwise uncontroversial as the unqualified equality of women. Sad, really.
Luke,
My questions are not really rhetorical. There are men from the Sydney diocese who have way too much influence here, IMO.
And I clearly see that the Bible has been altered to suir the agenda of complmenatarians so they can make this about the Bible.
Compare some of the relevant gender verses in the ESV and the KJV. Compare Romans 16:7, 1 Tim. 2:12, and Gen. 3;16 for starters. Complementarians and egalitarians now have a different Bible.
Egalitarians believe that in 2 Tim. 2:2 anthropos in the plural means “people.” Complementarians believe that anthropos means “men.” So are women human?
Somebody needs to tell me.
<blockquote>But the problem intensifies when a Diocese or Denomination, says, “sexual immorality, denial of cardinal doctrines, active sexual orientation, gender are not factors in whether someone should be a bishop/pastor”.<blockquote>
Mark,
Bad analogy or not – you use it – indicating that somehow, in your own mind, you manage to justify that really it’s not so bad to place women and sinners in the same category – that “othering” women is not unjustifiable.
You may recall from my post yesterday on “Part 7” that the process of “othering” people into a different catagory from one’s own is one of the 4 identifiable processes used for reproducing inequality: “Othering”; “Boundary maintenance” which refers to the ways in which power groups and individuals protect their positions by ensuring that their resources and power are transmitted to only members of their own group; “Emotional management” by superiors helps keep subordinates’ feelings of shame, anger, resentment, and inferiority under control so they won’t erupt and cause problems. Subordinates are given tokens of appreciation or “the appearance of status” to distract them from awareness of their very real lack of voice. (ie. “equal being and unequal role” – minorities easily recognize how this maps to “separate but equal”); “Subordinate adaptation” follows due deprivations by the power group – these offer practical knowledge of how to get by, and alternate criteria by which to judge one’s self competent, worthy or successful. (ie. “A Woman’s High Calling” by Elizabeth George, “Created To Be His Help Meet” by Debi Pearl). The paradigm is maintained by the implied possibility of people being “held accountable” as members of any of the hierarchial order’s categories. To be held accountable is to stand vulnerable to being ignored, discredited, or otherwise punished if one’s behavior appears inconsistent with what is prescribed for members of a certain category.
You seem to me to be a bright young man. Being gifted in rhetoric, you’ve obviously learned to use the 4 processes well. I find it sad and puzzling that you cannot see through the comp rhetoric for what it is.
Many women have walked away from the church because they simply could not bring themselves to live in a position of self depravation that gender hierarchy requires of women. I can remember that for a time young women were running to Wiccan religions because it gave them worth. It seems that has died down some. I am hoping that the extensive efforts of those who believe in Biblical equality for men and women had a hand in that. I do know of many young women whose mental and emotional well being and trust in the Lord has been greatly improved by the work of egals.
Yes—and then there’s the damage that it does to the gospel, as non-believers say, “The Christians’ God is sexist; why would I want anything to do with that?”
Paul, in his day, said wives should submit to their husbands so that the gospel would not be hindered, in that society where husband-rule was the established norm. What would he say about the way we hinder the gospel today?
Hi Kristen, at #6737 you asked a very interesting question
One of the appeals I see for an “egal” marriage is the freedom for a husband and wife to work out their relationship with mutual love and submission toward each other and not be forced into some role for which God has not suited them or commanded for them.
Sometimes the wife is a very gifted leader and the husband a gifted follower. In some forms of compism the man is not “allowed to do whatever he is capable of doing, without restriction, so long as it isn’t sin”. He is not allowed to be a faithful follower, supporter, helper, encourager in certain areas of their marriage. He is forced to be the leader and not the follower, and this can create many problems. If they maintain their theory of compism, it is only if the couple learn to live as egals in practice, that their marriage can thrive.
Any thoughts?
Sorry for the delayed response I have been away from the computer.
Adam,
Good question Melinda. I would like to also know the answer to this. Comp friends I have discussed this with seem very insistent on the authority/submission structure for marriage and appeal to the parent/child, master/slave examples to back it up. But very few really advocate marriage like this in practice.
Craig, I think you are right. My own husband experienced the “you have to be the leader; you have to be the authority in the marriage” as a burden and a hardship. Now that we have become egal, he is very happy to feel able to say to me, “I’d like you to make the decision this time” in a particular situation.
I hadn’t thought of it in terms of a “restriction” on him, but really, I suppose it was. Husbands do experience “roles” in terms of restrictions too. But that doesn’t make it right; quite the opposite in fact. A marriage where each partner is free to be who he or she is, works much better for us.
Hi Kristen,
You stated “Yes—and then there’s the damage that it does to the gospel, as non-believers say, “The Christians’ God is sexist; why would I want anything to do with that?”
I think this is a weak argument. Say we paraphrase it and use the word ‘homophobic’, ““The Christians’ God is [homophobic]; why would I want anything to do with that?”
Unfortunately this is exactly what is/has happening as Mark Baddeley discussed. Here is such an example…
” Similarly, most of us have no trouble explaining away the “women must be silent” passages with a cultural explanation – something about how women in Paul’s day were causing problems by interrupting the service, or speaking about things without the education to back themselves up, or violating cultural standards and thereby making the church look bad. I’ve heard all kinds of cultural explanations for Paul’s prohibition there, often made by the same people who resist applying that logic to the homosexuality prooftexts. But let’s be honest with ourselves. If we’re going to seriously be “not of this world” and follow Christ at all costs, how can we approach the Bible with a constantly changing standard, always trying to adapt it to fit our preconceived ideas?”
http://www.gaychristian.net/justins_view.php
An appeal to subjective experiences doesn’t enhance the egal argument any more than a gay testimony. The hermeneutic is the same and as the above quote shows (from a ‘gay christian’, i use that term VERY loosely), egalitarians are not applying a consistent approach to interpretation. I fear for where egalitarianism will lead.
God Bless
Mark
@Mark T, slippery slope arguments aren’t very helpful here. We need to debate the individual issues on their individual merits.
The problem is that egalitarian ideas *aren’t* preconceived ideas, especially as far as the bible is concerned. (If anything, Paul and Jesus were progressive with regards to their treatment of women in their own culture.) Patriarchy then—and to a lesser extent now—has been the preconceived idea, and at best it has been shown to be unnecessary, and at worst wrong and harmful (hello Islamic societies).
So, when you say “If we’re going to seriously be “not of this world” and follow Christ at all costs” I think you need to put your money where your mouth is. Are women inherently more deceiveable than men as the comp reading of 1 Tim 2 suggests? Should we return to some mythical 1950s time of gender norms? Should we go further and try and recreate 1st C gender norms, if they are indeed the gold standard for all cultures everywhere? I think it’s incumbent on complementarians to be honest with us about what your views on gender really are.
Again, I see the complementarian position as poorly thought through and almost impossible to apply when it steps out of a bible study and into the real world (which is why we’re mostly all practical egalitarians 6 days a week).
I’d love to see you guys at least be consistent in owning the views on gender your reading of the texts suggest, but so often there’s just this hand-wavy ‘Let’s not be of the world’ … ‘let’s follow Christ at all costs’ … ‘support egalitarianism and you’ll support gays!!1!’ arguments which really don’t add up to very much.
Mark T, Adam, Mark B (if you’re still following
– can you guys please have s hot at answering some of these questions?
Mark,
We could also very easily go the other way and compare this to the argument: “The Christians’ God is pro-slavery; why would I want anything to do with that?”
If you never apply any cultural considerations to the Bible, you end up bringing first-century (or 4000 BC, or whatever time period a Bible passage comes from) cultures forward into our day. I’m afraid it’ doesn’t help to just say, “Because homosexuality is wrong, therefore women should always be subordinate.” We could also say, “Representative government is wrong, because the Bible clearly says to ‘honor the king.’”
The key is to try to ascertain which aspects of the Scriptures are part of human culture, and which are timeless, divine mandates. This is a difficult thing to do, but it is our responsibility to read with discernment. You can’t say only egals do this, or that only pro-gay advocates do this. Complementarians do it too. If they didn’t, they would insist that women wear head coverings, remain silent (no talking at all) in the churches, and that a woman in the workforce may not even train a co-worker if he is male.
There is a difference between trying to approach the bible with an understanding of the context in which it has been written and in light of what the rest of the bible says and trying to adapt it to fit our preconcieved ideas. Mind you, I could just as easily claim that comps are twisting the bible to fit their preconceived ideas about traditional gender roles.
I don’t see how the egal approach to interpretation is any less consistent than the comp one.
Once you move away from taking each verse literally then you’re going to be applying different approaches to different parts of the bible.
How does your consistent approach counsel people who want to follow Christ at all costs to interpret 1 Cor. 7:10 “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say, it is good for them to stay unmarried”.
I’d also be interested to know how this consistent approach interprets Matt 19:21 as I don’t see many Christians selling all their possessions and giving to the poor.
I’m still waiting to understand how Adam can claim to be consistent in his approach to God given authority re men and women and yet not support the biblical commands for slaves to submit to their masters.
As far as a “changing standard” is concerned, I must ask these questions:
Was David wrong in introducing music to worship of God, when the Law spoke of worship only in terms of making sacrifices? Should Paul have insisted that the passage “You shall not muzzle the ox when it is treading out the grain” was clearly meant to be only about the treatment of oxen?
Is the word of God static and fixed, or living and active? Are we allowed to apply the Scriptures to our day—or must we re-create old days and old ways? And if we must do so—then why did God not have Moses serve Him the same way Abraham did? Why were His ways with Solomon different from His ways with the Judges? Did Jesus advocate that Israel return to some earlier cultural period, or did He address the culture He found Himself in?
I would strongly recommend having a look at Scot McKnight’s book “The Blue Parakeet.” It shows that God’s people have always read His word with discernment, and have always applied it to their own place in history and to their own cultures. Egalitarians are NOT unique in this. The only way in which egalitarians are unique, is in applying these standards to both men and women, rather than having one standard for how they read the passages directed to men and another for how they read the passages directed to women.
Hi, Craig, hi, Kristen,
The point you’re making here is such a good one, to my mind…!
One of the things I’ve found most troubling over the years about the conservative position with respect to women’s roles is that it seems impossible for us to live by it in practice, other than when it is confined to very formal situations, where something like ordination is the issue.
For it seems as though the ability to lead (itself being a composite of gifts involving the ability to organise, make decisions, evaluate your circumstances with a clear mind & etc) is one that is distributed among human beings with no concern for anyone’s gender. Much as I hate to admit it of my own sex, disorganisation, muddle-headedness, indecisiveness, lack of personality, the inability to plan adequately & etc. seem to characterise men every bit as often as they do women.
This means that frequently the best leaders in any given situation will be women rather than men.
And it also seems that in groups where the most talented leaders are not those holding formal leadership positions, everyone—even the group’s senior formal leader—follows the best leaders in the long run, as a practical fact.
This means that frequently the real leaders of groups will be women rather than men, no matter how much anyone says women may not lead these groups; and no matter how little these same women put themselves forward.
For me, you can insist the best leaders in a group, being women, should be confined to subordinate roles, but you can’t stop them being leaders (for that is what they naturally are); nor can you stop others following them. Moreover, it seems to me that all things being equal, where women are the best leaders in a group they will end up leading the group where it matters most—not in committees, but in practical life.
If these things are so, the Church’s restriction of women to subordinate roles seems entirely artificial, and the attempt to confine to men the greatest measure of influence as leaders seems unworkable in practice.
Yet if we are under a moral obligation such that husbands ought to lead their wives, and men ought to be the ones to lead churches, then we all should be able to live that way with relative ease, practically speaking. (That is, it should be practically speaking possible for anyone to apply the rule, given the state of affairs in which humans live.) Otherwise the obligation is unfair.
In my mind the conservative view only retains any plausibility while we confine the discussion to formal questions, like whether women should be bishops. As soon as we consider seriously what gifts constitute leadership, who really has these gifts, the general practical consequences of placing restrictions on the formal positions which some of our genuine leaders can hold, etc, the conservative view seems to far out-run our power to apply it.
Thank you, David.
I am reminded of Susannah Wesley, who started a women’s only Bible study in her home in the 1700s. Her clearly gifted teaching soon led to more and more women coming, and then the men got interested and started to come. She ended up with over 400 people, men and women, coming to hear her teach. Not once did she ever seek this, but the gift of God was the gift of God, and He didn’t seem to care whether she was teaching men or not. John Wesley was strongly influenced by memories of his mother when he began to allow gifted women to teach and preach the gospel under his ministry, and though he never formally ordained them, women like Phoebe Palmer may as well have been ordained, given the scope of their ministries.
When male church leaders denied women any leadership roles in the 1800s, they went overseas. Women traveled from place to place in Africa, India, etc., starting churches and helping raise up new leaders among the converts. For all intents and purposes, they functioned as bishops/apostles—though men denied them the titles, the titles were the only things missing from their ministries. Women like Amy Carmichael and Lottie Moon sought no formal recognition; they simply went out in the call of God and did what had to be done. If these women had been men, the clear call of God on their lives would have been quickly acknowledged. Instead, they had to fight the resistence of the churches that sent them, when they began to be used in ways in which God had supposedly said He would never use a woman.
When God showed the apostles that they were wrong about the Gentiles by pouring out His spirit on Cornelius and the gathering at their home, the apostles listened and moved with the move of the Spirit. This is one of the main differences between the early church, and all that has come after.
Hi Kristen,
I agree with this, ” “The Christians’ God is pro-slavery; why would I want anything to do with that?”
My point being that type of argument is really a fallacy whether you use pro-slavery, homophobic or ‘sexist’.
The Holy Spirit is far more powerful than any western culture.
The problem i see with the various egal interpretations is that for their interpretation to work a pre-assumed historical reconstruction must be adopted. Rather than allowing it to help, it becomes fundamental to the position (similarly the way pro-gay activists dismiss Romans 1 as Roman fertility cults).
This is a danger i see in other areas aswell, not just egalitarianism. For example, NT Wrights position on the New Perspective begins with a social reconstruction and from there reinterprets scripture to suit.
Therefore extra biblical texts become foundational not Biblical ones.
Hi Luke,
I’m not convinced it is a slippery slope. The quote i gave from a pro-gay supporter showed the inconsistency of egal interpretation. Unfortunately we have seen many Christians take this route (aswell as Churches). And finally, just research the beginnings of CBE and you will see that the original feminist group had to split as half of it went pro-gay. I don’t think egals can continue to hide behind a slippery slope argument
any longer, the facts are all there.
I don’t believe that 1 Tim 2:14 discusses women as more decieved, rather i believe Paul uses an example from
creation to show Eve usurping the created order.
As for practicality i can understand your concern, however we do live in a world based on authority
structures. People go to work under a boss, chiildren go to school under teachers, we abide by laws and law
enforcers. These things make society function properly.
The egal claim that subordinate=lesser being is not only a non-biblical assertion, but one
that is inconsistently applied to the rest of life also. (After all, are egals going to claim that they are less human and worth than their boss? Or do they just have different roles and responsibilities?) Both positions do have practical issues in my mind.
Note: Please distinguish between what i wrote earlier and the quote i gave. It seemed like a few people
mistook some of the quote for my words.
God Bless
Mark
”An appeal to subjective experiences doesn’t enhance the egal argument any more than a gay testimony. The hermeneutic is the same and as the above quote shows (from a ‘gay christian’, i use that term VERY loosely), egalitarians are not applying a consistent approach to interpretation. I fear for where egalitarianism will lead.”
An appeal to subjective experiences is necessary. Too often those who defend abusive treatment toward women utilize gender hierarchy as their Biblical defense. Those who say that gender hierarchy is Biblical and these teachings are Biblical need to clean up the fallout from the teachers who preach extreme subjection of women. Or distance yourselves from those who teach and those who practice abusive treatment of women.
What we cannot do is ignore how gender hierarchical teachings have been and are being used to not only abuse women, but demean their worth in spiritual matters. Since you have said that you do not agree with this, what are you doing to rectify these issues.
Mark, you are privileging your female-subordination position as somehow exempt from the historical changes that have resulted in Christians accepting democratic government instead of monarchies, anti-slavery laws instead of laws protecting slavery, etc. The Holy Spirit is certainly more powerful than western cultures, but that doesn’t make ancient cultural norms somehow binding upon us, just because they were the ones in existence when the Biblical texts were written. If the Holy Spirit is beyond cultures, why tie Him to 1st-century Roman and Greek ones?
Please show me where the Bible definitively states that husband-rule is part of the eternal Kingdom of God and is not simply an ancient cultural norm like monarchy and slavery.
Hi, Kristen,
Thanks for those examples: that’s exactly the kind of thing I had in mind…!
Hi Mark T,
It seems that you believe
1.Adam was given authority over Eve.
2.Eve committed the sin of usurping this authority.
Is this correct? If so, I would be interested in knowing
1.Where is there any record of God giving this authority to Adam over Eve? I
2.How exactly did Eve usurp this authority? What did she do?
3.Where are we told in Genesis that she committed the sin of usurping Adam’s authority?
We are told about her sin of eating the fruit, disobeying God after being deceived by the serpent. I cannot see mention of this other sin.
Thank you.
Hi, Mark,
You observed:
‘The problem i see with the various egal interpretations is that for their interpretation to work a pre-assumed historical reconstruction must be adopted.’
To say of interpretations which reject the traditional doctrines concerning women’s roles, that ‘a pre-assumed historical reconstruction must be adopted’, seems to me to involve a fundamental misunderstanding, if you don’t mind me saying so.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this site, it appears that unless a moral rule is given in terms that make the place and range of its application perfectly explicit, the rule could be meant for only one person; for ten people; for a hundred people; for all people living in the first century; for a billion people; for everyone who has ever lived and ever will live; & etc..
‘Don’t stand on the furniture’ for example is sufficiently ambiguous that it could be used as a moral rule confined to one person; it could be used merely to regulate the behaviour of some group or other, however large or small; and it could be used to express a universal moral law.
Many of the Bible’s ethical sentences make no clear mention of the place and range of their application. This is true, evidently, of the sentences traditionally invoked to justify the restriction of women’s roles.
If these things are so, when we come to interpret those particular sentences, we are all in the position of having to establish the extent to which they are supposed to be applied. It doesn’t matter what our views are otherwise.
A person who wants to argue that the sentences in our scriptures which touch on the issue of women’s roles support universal rules about these roles has a task as difficult as anyone’s to perform. They have to to demonstrate that these sentences’ range of application involves all women, everywhere, for all time—even though the sentences themselves do not state this.
To write as though the only people who are compelled to work out the extent to which these sentences apply, when it comes to women’s roles, are those who disagree with us on the subject seems to involve us in a cardinal mistake in our reading.
Conservatives seem very frequently to try to assume the high ground, when it comes to the issue of correct reading, without really being aware that their position is susceptible to the most serious objections (like the one mentioned) to do with their ignorance or neglect of basic facts regarding the nature of language itself. This is not a good thing; or at least if it is a good thing, it is good only for their opponents…
Okay, family is beginning to come through the vomiting bug of the last few days, and I can begin to venture back on.
Three “housekeeping matters”.
First, No more of anything that looks like this, in this case, by Teri,
That is, as far as I am concerned, another form of the ad hominem argument. No-one on these threads, egal or comp, is here to have their personal life done over. That question was used as part of an argument, it was not an expression of concern for Mark Topping, and so is simply out of bounds.
I don’t care if anyone disagrees with me on this, that’s simply one of the norms I have for my threads. Anyone flouting it (and Teri, you’re now on your ‘third strike’, given that I called you on this a couple of days ago), will have all their comments on these threads deleted by me (once I’ve gotten moderator privileges off Rachel) until, in private discussion with me, indicate a willingness to abide by those norms, however much they disagree with them (or, in Teri’s case, think I’m guilty of the same thing).
I take this very seriously, so if you’re not sure how I will assess a comment or rhetorical flourish, just don’t publish it. I regularly delete things from my own comments because I think, on reflection, they’re likely to raise the temperature too much.
Second, Mark Topping and Craig Swift, the debate on 1 Tim 2 can come to an end now. I have no interest in these threads become a rerun of Jean Williams’ thread on her latest post. I doubt that anyone other than already convinced egal (or at least moving in that direction) finds a thread where one comp tries to argue exegesis with multiple egals simultaneously all that helpful in getting a read on the strengths and weaknesses of the various positions. (And that would be true if it was in reverse). No doubt it has some benefit, but it’s not a goal I have for what I’m doing here, and, given the overall ‘tone’ of the comments over the last few days in my absence, is going to make my goals harder to achieve. So, it stops now, there’s lots of forums out there you can have that debate, go and have it there.
Third, I understand the desire to have one’s voice heard. But I’m doubtful as to how much favour a group of egalitarians do to their cause by colonising a thread by sheer weight of numbers, so that every time a complementarian speaks up they get multiple rejoinders to have to field, each coming from a different direction. I’m happy for you guys to do that to me – by writing the posts I put a big target on my chest anyway. I’ve already had someone who followed Jean’s thread describe it as, “The egals seem to think they can win just by outtalking everyone else” and someone who has followed the comments the last few days describe them as ‘bullying – every time a comp speaks he gets howled down by several egals who then pat each other on the back’.
On this point, I’m not saying that you can’t do it, if you guys really want to keep on this approach I’ll wear it. But I am questioning the wisdom of it. As per my posts, the issues are not just the ideas and the arguments, but also a range of other factors. And some (many) people will find it hard to accept that you guys are into dignity and tolerance based on this. That mightn’t be ‘fair’ and I’m not saying it is, but I think it is a ‘political’ reality that you should be keeping in mind.
I’m not interested in arguing this (or any of the three points). If you disagree with the third point, feel free to say so and keep going full steam ahead. But if you disagree with the first two, you still need to work within those boundaries and I’m not interested in debating them.
Sorry that that’s a lot harsher than I usually manage to pull off, but these threads have increasingly become the kind of thing I work hard to not have, and I need to say something now to head things off before they go further in that direction.
Hi Suzanne,
Which is the more tolerant society? The one that allows people who believe in big toe hierarchy to practice it in institutions governed by freedom of association and to advocate for it as per freedom of speech? Or the one that, to use your words, say that it ‘will not be tolerated’?
I may have missed the trick in this question, but the answer is that the tolerant society is the one that tolerates a view being practiced and advocated even when people disagree with it. And the intolerant society is the one that doesn’t.
Perhaps only in a country that gave us the Human Rights Commissions, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Human_Rights_Commission_free_speech_controversies something that seems almost straight out of George Orwell’s 1984, could it even be asked whether the tolerant society is one that doesn’t tolerant.
Please accept my apologies for making personal statements. I’m assuming that is what the complaint is. In the future I will confine my comments to generalities only or us and them generalities.
Hopefully, that will be within the posting guidelines.
Hi Teri,
Absolutely, and thank you. Very gracious of you.
Which is the more tolerant society? The one that allows people who believe in big toe hierarchy to practice it in institutions governed by freedom of association and to advocate for it as per freedom of speech? Or the one that, to use your words, say that it ‘will not be tolerated’?
The tolerant society does not allow views which cause or contribute to harm and deprivation of freedoms for other people.
If someone’s view is that blonds, or blacks, or married women do not have freedom to earn money, to own property or to go in and out of their homes without someone else’s permission, then that view is a deprivation of someone else’s freedom.
That view should be outlawed. I believe that the views that governed my life were against the law.
“Sue” that’s me.
Hi Melinda,
Welcome along, and thanks for your contribution.
Well, I hope that that insinuation was very subtle indeed, as it wasn’t intended.
It was more trying to argue the opposite – that egals are principled. Often, in the earlier stages of the women’s ordination debate (and people in the Sydney Diocese would be aware of this from the last time a bill to ordain women came to Synod), it is argued that Christians should vote for the ordination of women even if they disagree with it – because they should show tolerance of others, and not restrict their conscience.
I’ll accept that for some egals that is only an argument of convenience, a way whereby they can get a presence in the institution and they don’t really believe in the importance of safeguarding the conscience of people they disagree with (that’s true of all political movements, so no slight on egalitarianism there that it might have some like that in its midst).
But for others that argument is offered genuinely – they genuinely think that Christian institutions must respect the consciences of the dissenting minority. That group, I would argue, will have problems when the comps respected their conscience when they had the numbers politically, but when their egal fellow-travellers say, “We don’t need to respect the conscience of comps, they need to submit to a lawful authority, and this woman is a lawful authority. No conscience issues here for a comp.”
I agree, that egals like you won’t ever have this problem – “an egalitarian worldview is the only one that is consistent with the Gospel”. But yours isn’t the only take on egalitarianism and its implications. If you read the comments on the threads of the previous series you’ll find a number of self-confessed egals saying that “Of course we can work with complementarianism and find a way to preserve their conscience.” That’s the group that will possibly be unsettled if/when that proves not to be the case.
Hi Melinda,
A special, and genuine, appreciation for this gem:
First, up, simply loved the Jesuitical comment. If we are going to label each other’s arguments (and just imagine if I’d made a passing observation that someone’s comment was ‘the most liberal approach’ to get the impact in reverse) in a way that sheds more heat than light, at least let’s do it creatively. This is a genuinely original insult. And got a genuine wry chuckle from me on threads which, overall, haven’t done that. So, thanks for that.
But, as I said to Luke, I will never try and claim that complementarianism is the more tolerant position. As anyone who follows these kinds of arguments know, there is invariably two strong ideological positions – a left-wing progressive view, and a right-wing conservative view. The left-wing view is always the tolerant position, and the conservative position is always the intolerant position. And then in the middle are convinced moderates who, because they don’t share either ideology are always the reasonable position. In my view, anyone championing a view seen to be as conservative just needs to come to terms with the fact that they will be seen as intolerant, just because of the ideas, and their opponents will see themselves as tolerant no matter how intolerantly they behave. Just accept that you’re in the dog-house and move on.
But, if I had said that complementarians were more tolerant than intolerant egalitarians, I think it could be argued that a reasonable reader might look at your ‘Jesuitical’ assessment, compare that to Suzanne’s claim that true tolerance for an egalitarian society is to treat complementarianism as a criminal offence (!), and go, “Really not so sure on that one. I don’t think he’s being Jesuitical to say that that is unbelievably intolerant by any traditional definition of ‘tolerance.’ And more intolerant than anything I’ve seen with complentarianism.”
Which gives rise to a second wry chuckle.
The left-wing view is always the tolerant position, and the conservative position is always the intolerant position.
Mark,
I have to say that I don’t see any resemblance at all. This has nothing to do with it.
The way I see it is that certain people, in this case, complementarians, do not believe that women have the same rights as men. These are important rights like going in and out of the home on one’s own, having a job, or deciding whether or not to become pregnant. Women are in total submission to their husbands on these issues. And yet, there are basic human rights.
So, on the one side, a group which teaches that the basic human rights of women should be curtailed. But a woman has no choice about being a woman. She is born that way.
On the other hand, there are those of us who believe that complementarians, who have every choice in the world about what to believe, should not have their beliefs, at least those beliefs which curtail the basic human rights of women, respected.
In short, complementarians are complementarian by choice. Nobody is born a complementarian. But a woman is born female.
I lost basic human rights because of the teaching of complementarians. But I had no choice about being a woman.
I am totally shocked that any complementarian would try to make some kind of comparison between themselves and a woman who has lost basic human rights.
Complementarians restrict and deprive women.
I would like to see certain restrictions put on the teaching of complementarianism.
Why would complementarians compare their condition to the condition of women?
Mark,
I am dead serious. In law, when you stop being a slave, you have freedom of movement, freedom to earn a living, freedom of the body, freedom from violence and penetration.
But women are not free from any of this if they are married to a complementarian husband who follows the teaching that a wife is to submit IN ALL THINGS.
Yes, I think that the teaching that a wife is to obey her husband should be made illegal. It is immoral.
Mark, I’m sincerely glad to have given you a little mirth.
This provoked the same response from me;
Just for the record, I described your approach as Jesuitical because I think the points made in these 3 blogs exemplify
“a form of argument designed less to seek the truth than to make a case, a form of argument that was aggressive and clever but perhaps not always sincere” Cullen Murphy.
I don’t believe for one minute that you or other comps here are insincere in your belief in complementarianism-just that the points presented in these three blogs aren’t seeking truth about comp/egal positions but are designed purely to shore up the comp position in a pragmatic manner.
@Mark T, when you say “I believe Paul uses an example from creation to show Eve usurping the created order.” I think there’s a couple of problems:
– v13 suggests some order, but we know from evolution this isn’t true, but with v14, why does Paul say “the woman was deceived” rather than “the woman usurped authority” (or whatever)—why does Paul use deception at all? It surprises me that the comp position here is both a modern innovation—historically I’m sure the meaning was clear here—and one that undercuts their own premise—that there’s a point to the created order, which brings us to my second point:
– What is the created order based on? Is it arbitrary, or is there some intrinsic traits which should rightly prevent women teaching men? It seems very bizarre to say there’s no intrinsic reason… but we must adhere to it at all costs.
@Mark B
Ok, thanks, we’ll discuss it at our next meeting
Seriously though, I wouldn’t read too much into a random handful of people disagreeing for (as you say) different reasons. Saying “Wah too many people are disagreeing in the comments of my blog post for too many reasons” is a bit rich 
Glad the family has recovered!
@ Mark B – thoroughly enjoyed reading your ‘godly’ dummy spit, and exhortation to the egal. masses to cease their co-ordinated sorties. How naughty of them!
Methinks you have pulled the tigers tail, and alas, the tiger snarls.
I love watching how this debate is a mask for the idealogical debate of biblical hermeneutics, all sides strenously defending their patch. It’s clearly a first-order issue for all stakeholders.
I’m reminded of the post-resurrection story of the Road to Emmaeus. When travelling the road with Jesus, the two folk eagerly discuss recent events and scripture, with Jesus offering a few exegetical tips. But at the end of the day, Jesus sets aside scripture and focusses on the shared meal, at which point his true self is revealed. For me, this is a story about how scripture can inform us and can mediate the sacred, but there is a limit. This story suggests the primacy of community and sacred relationship, not scripture. Against this backdrop, perhaps an entirely new conversation may open up.
Cheers.
For the record—with one exception, I have not discussed the dialogues on this Sola panel with any other egalitarian. I am certainly not involved in a “coordinated sortie.” I’m chuckling at the idea that this kind of conspiracy theory is being read into the fact that a bunch of egalitarians have gotten interested in the discussion over here (which, may I say, is well worth being involved in because it’s a more than a cut above most complementarian blogs and the interaction they allow (or don’t) with egalitarians. Deleted posts and being shouted down is what I’m used to from comp blogs.
But no, none of us (not even the one person I mentioned as an exception above) are involved with me (and I very much doubt they are with each other) in saying behind the scenes to one another, “Did you see what was posted over at the Sola panel? Let’s all go over there and bombard it with posts!” I appreciate being called part of a “tiger” rather than some of the other names I’m used to seeing the egalitarian position described as, anyway. *grin*
I did want to say one thing about Suzanne’s recent posts. I think it’s important that we don’t become thought police, suppressing any thinking that we ourselves consider dangerous—because the next time around, it might be our own thoughts that are the target of such suppression.
But those complementarians (some of them proudly call themselves “patriarchalists,” but many of them do stick with “complementarian”) who use comp teachings as a justification for emotional abuse, control, manipulation, isolation, or other oppression of women should be the ones who are the biggest target of what Mark Baddeley describes as the “forceful” showing of what he considers “true” complementarianism. People who have been seriously harmed by complementarianism would like to see comp churches truly show how serious they are about the dignity and equality of women being upheld, by reversing policies that lead to the ignoring of the pleas of these women in favor of the man’s right to do as he pleases in “his” home.
Thanks for considering this. I hear the pain in Suzanne’s words and am deeply moved by it, and I don’t doubt you are as well.
Okay, this one from Luke:
Misses the point of what I was trying to say (and as I was, and am, still a bit sick, that could be entirely my problem). I don’t think I complained about multiple disagreements to me – quite the opposite, I said it’s fine to do it to me. I suggested that it mightn’t be the best strategy to use when the odd complementarian ventures into the thread. If someone else has engaged them in a good conversation, just let that conversation run. And if two people have already engaged them, really think twice before opening up a third front on the same person. I’d give the same advice if it was in reverse – except if was comps doing it to egals on one of ‘my’ threads it wouldn’t be advice, I’d pull rank (because, of course, that’s what us comps do
)and insist upon it.
Thank you, we’re not entirely out of the woods, but the food now stays in the tummy. That’s a definite advance.
Hi Kristen,
Well, I am glad to hear that you are still finding this of that kind of nature – thanks for saying that ‘out loud’. It really does grieve me to hear that things work differently elsewhere, I don’t see what we’re doing here as all that unusual. *scatches head*
Given that first Luke, and now you, have taken my (to use S. Jackson’s words) ‘“godly” dummy spit’ to mean that I was making accusations of a conspiracy, it seems I need to explain myself a bit, because that really wasn’t in mind.
I wouldn’t have any problems with “the egals” talking to each other off thread and co-ordinating their efforts, reflecting on the threads, talking to each other about the best way (or ways) forward for them to present the egalitarian case in the framework of these threads. I think that’s entirely valid, when done properly.
I’ve done it myself with Gordon Cheng on one website in particular a few years back – we talked to each other about what we saw happening and divided up our efforts so as to try and present our case as well as we could, on threads where ‘shouting down your opponent’ (indeed, where swearing and even blaspheming) were considered acceptable behaviours.
So that wasn’t the point of the advice. Sure, if the ‘conspiracy’ was functioning to stack the cards – one person taking the ‘good cop’ role to win some concessions from someone while the other takes a ‘bad cop’ role and then uses those to put the screws on, then, yes I’d have problems. But I think co-ordination can function more constructively than that – simply as an aid to putting the best foot forward.
The point was more about group dynamics.
When I did small group leader’s training in my early twenties I, as is my fashion, went out and bought and read a large swathe of books on the topic. One of the things the better books on ‘how to lead a bible study’ had in common was material on ‘group dynamics’ – norms that can develop in a group without anyone planning it. And how a group leader should constructively seek to establish healthy norms – norms that make for good conversation, both by explicit statements, and by a range of implicit strategies that encourage the norms to just naturally develop.
It seems to me that threads are a kind of social group – very impermanent, with people coming for a while and then dropping out, but still governed by the same sociological principles – something that it appears that Kay Fezer might be able to discourse on more fully than I.
That’s more where my advice was coming from. Norms can develop (and usually do) by a group of individuals just ‘drifting’ into them, all the time seeing only their own individual contribution and not stepping back and looking at what’s happening as a whole. I got two comments (from two women as it turns out – and women often seemed to be more attuned to this dimension. I hadn’t even imagined it existed until I did the reading) which is two more of that nature that I’ve gotten before. The fact that Adam (I think it was) turned up, seemed prepared to have a go at things, and then just dropped off the conversation to me is an ‘amber light’ about what is happening in threads. As the guy wanting the threads to promote good conversation, I don’t want that happening too often – whether I agree with the views or not.
Now, if, as Melinda seems to think, I basically am just in this to be clever and pull some swift arguments, then what was happening actually helps my cause. You guys have a great time, and I sit back smugly aware that, all unknowingly, the ‘three on one’ approach harms your cause out of all proportion to anything you might say. But, like you Kristen, I’m less interested in ‘my side’ winning at all costs, and more interested in making sure that people get a clear view of what’s going on. Hence the advice, as I’d rather drop that dynamic down – it’s too ‘cheap’ a win to sit back and let it go on without speaking up. But it really is just advice, and advice from someone who is in opposition, so everyone is free to ignore it as they see things.
Hi Kristen,
This was just a class act:
Yes, Suzanne’s view that I, and people like me (including, I presume, women complementarians) are criminals is not the majority view in egalitarianism by a long shot. And some egalitarians, like you, have a very robust sense of freedom of speech, religion, and association – in the best traditions of the U.S. But it is probably valuable for everyone, egal, comp, and other to see that such views do exist as part of the broader debate, given that they do exist. Knowledge is fundamentally a good thing.
I wholeheartedly agree. In the same way that I want egalitarianism to clearly break with things on its margins that really alarm me (like the homosexuality issue), I want complementarianism to be both seen to be, and actually doing in practice, opposing its ideas being used to justify abuse. Now, for people like Teri, and Suzanne, who see the view itself as abuse, that is simply impossible. But it won’t surprise people that I disagree with them at that point, and so think the task is worth attempting.
And, again, in my experience of complementarianism ‘here’ in the little part of the world that is Sydney specifically, and Australia more generally, I doubt any significant ‘complementarian leader’ would accept abuse as a valid expression of the teaching, and the strongest stance I have seen taken against abuse – both in words and deeds have generally been done, in Anglican circles in Australia, IMO, by complementarian bishops, particularly in Sydney. Some of the most egregious examples of covering up abuse (and here we’re moving more into child abuse specifically) have been by egalitarian bishops. Again, that doesn’t prove anything – but it may help explain that our experiences are feeding into it quite different perceptions of how the two ideologies are expressed in reality.
Any comp who suggested that the implication of what we stand for is that a man has the right to do as he pleases in his home would get cast immediately into the “outer darkness” by me and most other comps I know personally. And I think that needs to be the stance of all complementarians. We really are committed to the dignity of women, not their oppression. Zero tolerance for abuse is therefore just basic.
Absolutely. Given that she’s apparently said that I and all other complementarians are criminals, it’s going to be hard for me to engage with her arguments or her pain because I would need to disagree at points, and that runs the risk of looking like I’m adding to the abuse. So I’m glad that someone on ‘her side’ did so, and so well. Thanks.
Given that she’s apparently said that I and all other complementarians are criminals, it’s going to be hard for me to engage with her arguments or her pain because I would need to disagree at points, and that runs the risk of looking like I’m adding to the abuse
For the record, I did not say that complem tarians are criminals. Please do not add lies about me to the abuse that I have already experienced.
I said that it is criminal to remove basic human rights from women.
Complementarians teach that the husband is to “assert his rulership” over his wife (and I am quoting Bruce Ware who came to my hometown. This is on the CBMW website, and Bruce Ware associated personally with our Sydney diocese ministers and they preached this my former church).
If Complementarians ant to teach assertion of rulership, they must also be explicit in teaching from the pulpit that this does not include any violence or coercion. The husband may not hit his wife or use any force, or prevent the wife from access and exit from any room in the house including the bathroom or her bed, or prevent her from entering and leaving the house. He cannot prevent her from making phone calls. He cannot prevent her from going to a counsellor or to the police. He cannot remove any of her personal belongings including her keys, cellphone or visa card to a joint account. He cannot control her finances, he cannot impregnate her against her will, he cannot prevent her from earning money.
The husband cannot control the children without the equal agreement of the wife. The husband does not, in law, have more control over the children than the wife does. He cannot prevent her from saving for a ppension. He cannot prevent her from having a will.
A complementarian preacher MUST make these things explicit in his preaching from the pulpit, and the list is much longer.
A complementarian preacher MUST offer to wives aid and protection from violence and coercion in every sermon in which he also preaches the subordination of women. This is absolutely necessary to prevent subordination to sin from harming the wife and children.
If a complementarian preacher does not do this, he exhibits callous negligence concerning the physical and emotional safety of women and children.
This is what I am saying. I am not willing to sit through years of negotiation and concern about association with homosexuals and not hear even hear one word about how to prevent the abuse of wives.
I am saying that the Sydney diocese is directly responsible for the fact tthat their ministers are not trained in the EXPLICIT PROTECTION of the basic human rights of wives.
This is what I am saying. Christians should not exhibit callous indifference to violence in the home.
II hope that you will not misrepesent me.
People who have been seriously harmed by complementarianism would like to see comp churches truly show how serious they are about the dignity and equality of women being upheld,
The complementarians that I know are way too busy worrying about homosexuals\ity to take time to support abused wives. They are also busy removing women from posts of spiritual leadership. I have not seen even one thing that they do to improve the lot of women. It is basically in the other direction. This is my observation. When I see a church go from egal to comp, I don’t see women treated with more dignity and equality than they had before.
“When I see a church go from egal to comp, I don’t see women treated with more dignity and equality than they had before.”
The Nazarene church seems to have done some shifting in women’s ministries. It used to be that great respect was shown to women teaching and preaching. Now some Nazarene churches show much less respect toward women who are called to teach and basically give them no opportunities. This is deeply hurtful and offensive to women who are called to lead and teach.
Similar things have happened in the Baptist churches. It is unthinkable to imagine that women could be leaders, teachers, preachers, starting churches, etc. over seas in other nations, but when they come back home to their Baptist churches they are forbidden to do the same in their own churches. Such disrespect is difficult for anyone to swallow.
Hi Suzanne,
And you also said, at http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_8/#6783:
Your comments have tended to be forthright and blunt in their statement of your position. You started this comment by saying ‘I am dead serious’ – which is usually an indicator that the person is speaking the plain literal truth, and is not using any device such as hyperbole.
In your comment you said that “teaching that a wife is to obey her husband should be made illegal”. Almost every complementarian will recognise that as something they’d want to see as part of their view.
Now, I will acknowledge that you said that teaching that ‘should’ be and not ‘is’ illegal. But if you think it should be illegal to teach that, and complementarians do teach that, then I don’t see any real difference between what you said and my summary of it. You think we should be criminals would be more precise, but I don’t think I misrepresented you.
This is particularly pertinent for Anglicans because the 1662 Book of Common Prayer – a fairly important liturgical work for Anglicans everywhere says something along these lines in the marriage service when specifically speaking to the wife:
Which means that you want the BCP order of marriage to be illegal – for it too teaches this.
If I have misunderstood your words, explain how ‘should be illegal’ does not equate to ‘should be a criminal’, and I will happily withdraw the statement and give an apology.
But there is no abuse here. We are communicating through typed words, and they are easy to misunderstand. Your contributions are strong in tone and sentiment and that invariably means misunderstanding is possible between what you think your words communicate and what another reader might deduce from those words.
Yes you were abused, but I am not going to treat you as a victim now who needs to be wrapped in cotton wool – that just perpetuates the experience. Part of my treating you with dignity is take your words seriously, and to read them like anyone else’s if they said such things.
If I get you wrong on something, it wasn’t intentional, it was a mistake. Explain the error to me, and I’ll withdraw and apologise quite happily.
As someone who has been abused, you will be aware that the word ‘abuse’ needs to be preserved for cases of genuine abuse so as not to cheapen the experience of those who do suffer abuse. Misreading a comment on a thread is not abuse. I’d ask you not to make such a claim again to me or anyone else on these threads in future.
Thank you for resdponding. There used to be a law that a husband could beat his wife. There was a law that women cannot own property or vote, or do this or that. These are now illegal.
Therefore, I do not think that there should be any surprise that we should add to what is against the law.
Specifically, I believe that the vow of a wife to obey her husband, should be made illegal.
A vow is a serious thing. But I have provided a long list of things that are part of basic human rights.
I would like to see complementarians uphold basic human rights for women.
Do complementarians believe that women have basic human rights that cannot be infringed on by the teaching to obey the husband? I would like to see a list of examples, because I am an old person now, and in my lifetime I have never eeven heard of any human rights for women preached from the pulpit. I have been offered no dignity and equalit5y would be a dirty word if it applied to women, in my experience. I would like to hear what human rights you think women have.
You know my list.
No violence.
No force.
No prevention of going from room to room or from leaving or entering the house.
No stopping a woman from going go a counsellor or a doctor
No impregnating a woman against her will
No controlling how a wife saves for her old age.
Equal decision-making in medical emergencies for the children.
No stopping a woman from having employment and earning money.
No stopping a woman from higher education.
No stopping a woman from voting for the candidate of her choice.
These are some of the rights that are in the law. Every citizen has these rights. I want to know that complementarians are aware of and uphold these rights for women.
Would you uphold these rights for wives?
Reading this
Really chilled me to the bone. So much so that I want to put the comp and egal debate on theological grounds to one side for a minute.
I’m not going to try to say because misuse of the comp position may lead to abuse, QED complementarianism is wrong-I’m not convinced that’s a good argument. I am, however, genuinly concerned from a pastoral perspective about the issues Suzanne raises. It’s somewhat of a tangent to this thread, but I believe it’s too important to ignore.
How does one respond/pastor/counsel a wife who might be in the sort of situation to which Suzanne alludes if you, or she, believe that a wife obeying her husband is an essential part of the gospel?
I must agree. That wives are to “obey” their husbands is, I’ll grant, in the Anglican wedding vows, but doesn’t appear as a command to women in the Bible—the best comps can offer is “obey” in the KJV in Titus 2, which is actually a mistranslation of the word usually rendered “submit,” and the statement that Sarah “obeyed” Abraham in 1 Peter 2, which is NOT a direct command to women. But if comps are going to insist on “obey,” they’d doggone well better include a list of things that the husband is not allowed to tell the wife to do. And just to say, “He can’t command you to sin” is completely insufficient. It’s not “commanding a wife to sin” to tell her the kitchen must be toothbrush-cleaned from top to bottom before she can come to bed at night, where her husband is impatiently waiting for her to fulfill yet another command, and to throw “do not deny one another” at her if she dares say she’s too tired.
This is a true story a woman told me of her complementarian marriage. This “obey” business is a terrible thing, and I for one am completely against it. I thought “soft” complementarians wanted submission, not obedience. I’m really quite surprised to hear you say, Mark, that almost every complementarian you know wants wives to obey.
Even in our deepest complementarian days, I never had to obey my husband. He wanted nothing to do with such a teaching. I’m neither a slave, nor a child—and the Bible does not say “obey” to me as a wife.
The problem with “obey” is that it implies that the one you’re obeying has the right to “command,” or “give orders.” Husbands should never give orders to or command their wives, and therefore the obedience of wives should be a moot point. Would you command or give orders to your best friend? Would you expect your friend to obey you? Would not doing such a thing damage the friendship? Would not your friend resent being treated so? Then how can a husband think his wife should “obey”? How is it anything other than damaging to the intimacy of marriage, for him to place himself in a position such that he has a right to give commands? Jesus said “not so among you,” didn’t He?
This really upsets me. To say a wife should obey, contradicts everything that has been said here about the dignity and equality of women.
Kristen, I must have missed where anyone said wives must obey. It is unfortunate that some Bibles have chosen to interpret upotassomenoi (submit) as if it were upakouo (obey). Paul pointedly did not use the term ‘obey’ when referring to wives even though the laws of the era did. This would have been very noticeable to the readers of Paul’s epistles.
IMO Paul was slowly walking marriages and husbands away from the authoritarian impersonal modal of wife as housekeeper and child bearer, by stepping back from husbands exercising authority over and replacing this with the command to love their wives. Marriage is to be a union so intimate that they become as one. This does not happen by the wife having no will but to obey the husband.
My experience is that the one who believes he has the gift of command finds the obligation of the wife to obey makes the two into one. The one person does all the thinking, and makes decisions about actions. He is able to make two people act as one and increase the efficiency of his own thought. He always has that second person to carry out and complete his commands. This works well for the one in command.
The brain of the one in submission slowly migrates into another realm, and loses touch with reality. Either that or she becomes contentious, even on occasion expressing personal choice. Perhaps she has a variance of opinion regarding the health and well-being of the children. She has no right to these thoughts but she has them anyway.
There are no guidelines among complementarians on how mothers are able to fulfill their responsibility as parents. Usually I read that the one with the most authority has the most responsibility. However, the laws of the country do not recognise the lesser responsibility of the mother. Neither does the heart of the mother.
Hi Suzanne,
You’re very welcome, thank you for taking my response so well.
No, no contest between us there.
That’s fine, but that’s something very significant for you and everyone else to see about where your take on egalitarianism has brought you – you are part of a denomination that is part of the Anglican Communion. The Book of Common Prayer is a foundational document for Anglicanism – especially its liturgies. And you want a fundamental part of its marriage service made illegal.
You could be right, I’m not contesting that, but if you are, it means that Anglicans will be substantially estranged from their own heritage, in much the same way that I think egalitarians generally are estranged from the whole period of Christian faith and discipleship between the close of the canon and the present day.
The implications of what you’re saying are huge. I’ll leave that there, and move to your far more significant concern:
Absolutely and without equivocation is my answer.
You would never hear me ‘preach them from the pulpit’ either – but that’s because they would be assumed to be absolutely basic. You’ll also never hear me preach from the pulpit that parents shouldn’t sacrifice their children during the family worship service, or serve them up as the main course for the Sunday lunch.
That’s not because I’m weak on such things, but because they are so beyond the pale that I think in any context I can think of in Australia (or in the circles I’m moving in here in England) that people would react to my preaching on the items in your list the same way they would to the items in mine – they’d think I was crazy to even see it as an issue, so preaching on it wouldn’t really help matters much.
But if any were an issue for a congregation, then I would preach on them as something that ‘not even the pagans do’.
As I made clear to my Reformation class (I think it was) at the start of one lecture (and will do so in future if I’m ever in such a role again) – if they are ministering in a settled location for, say two years, and by the end of that time it isn’t crystal clear to the congregation that abuse within the marriage and the family (from any gender to any gender, and from any generation to any generation) is utterly beyond the pale then they have failed to preach the word of God at all during that time.
How it gets done, I’m flexible on. That it gets done, I’m not.
to be continued
concluding
With that said, you asked that question of me, and behind every statement I make on pretty well anything is something close to a flow chart of nuances and the like, none of which in my head are ever qualifiers on an absolute answer that I gave you (they’re attempts to work out what basic principles look like in the real world in various circumstances), but do sometimes appear to seem that way to some people who hear them.
I won’t even begin to attempt to flush all those out, but here’s a few examples so that you can see whether my nuances amount, as far as you’re concerned, to an inadequate support for these basic human rights.
Force – force can be used in a marriage, on the other partner in the marriage, to save the other partner’s life from actions that they are taking that a ‘reasonable person’ would consider likely to cause serious harm or death to themselves or another. Particularly parents can use force on another parent if they ever fly into a murderous rage against a child. None of that is abuse, nor does it offend basic human rights.
Violence – some marriages are characterised by violence as part of the operating norms of the relationship – sometimes verbal, sometimes physical, sometimes a mixture. If the violence is genuinely give and take with both partners that’s not abuse. It’s not healthy, and a Christian response is to help the couple develop new patterns and break with these ones, but ‘mutual violence’ is not abuse – even if one partner is using words, and the other fists.
Now, in law, one is considered a much worse violation of human rights than the other (physical violence is treated far more seriously than verbal violence) and a pastor needs to keep that in mind as regards responsibilities to report a criminal offense.
But as a Christian looking at a marriage, if two people are lashing out at each other and picking ‘their weapon of choice’ that’s mutual violence and equally culpable for acting in a way that cuts against the grain of the nature of marriage.
And one person just having ‘a smart mouth’ or ‘giving back talk/cheek’ ‘showing disrespect’ does not amount to verbal violence. “Verbal violence” in this context is something that a reasonably qualified social worker or therapist would consider ‘abuse’ if it was done unilaterally in a relationship. There’s a high threshold for it to pass, so I doubt this category would appear often. But if it did, that’d be my response.
Equal decision-making in medical emergencies for the children – A classic example of something that is good in theory and a train-wreck in reality. So I agree with the theory, and would happily affirm it for non-emergencies, but think it has to inform practice, it can’t be practice in emergencies.
In emergencies almost all functioning societies and institutions give executive power to one individual for the duration of the emergency, they don’t address the problem through a committee, still less by two people each with equal say and no way to break a disagreement them.
A couple needs to have worked out, ahead of time, who has the executive power in a genuine medical emergency concerning one of their children, if there is any chance at all in that relationship that a fundamental disagreement might arise (and that’s the vast majority of marriages).
The couple has to take stock of their strength and weaknesses – who functions best under pressure as a decision maker, who ‘gets’ medical issues better and has more knowledge, and who ‘gets’ the child in question better. And then, as a comp, the husband needs to take the lead in having the couple work out together who is going to make the decisions when a disagreement arises – either he does it under his authority as the head of the family, or it is delegated to the wife (only if she consents to that – husbands aren’t allowed to fob that decision off because they don’t want to make the hard decisions) – and if he does, he does it properly and doesn’t take it back in the middle of the emergency, pull the rug out from under her, or blame her if anything goes wrong. The buck stops with him, not her, even if she’s making the decisions.
Those should give some examples of the nuancing I have in mind.
But I also want to raise the presenting issue you raised. Have I ‘told lies’ about you (misread your intent or even words), or did I get you right? When you say that the vow to obey one’s husband should be illegal, and teaching that should be illegal, am I right to deduce from that you think people (like me) should be criminals?
I’d like a clear and thoughtful answer to that one Suzanne, as you’ve said something significant there, and I want it to be clear what you are and are not saying, and I want to know whether I owe you an apology. All three of those matter to me.
I notice that you have carefully reclassified violence into nice little packages that make it okay, and not all that bad really. What women on earth would ever go to you for help in a situation of life threatening violence. You would have to organize the violence into one of your categories before you would help her. The police don’t waste that kind of time. Thank goodness.
Regarding what I believe is illegal, let me repeat that I believe that the vow to obey and the teaching that a wife is to “submit in all things” with the meaning that she should obey her husband in all things is immoral and should be illegal.
You have said that you uphold the right of a woman to vote for the candidate of her choice, to attend higher education, to get a job, to refuse impregnation, to leave the house without permission and to make phone calls without them being monitored perhaps.
Therefore, you do not support the notion that a wife is to obey in all things. I am saying that the practice of making a wife vow to obey in all things is wrong. Jesus teaches us that we should not make this kind of vow. It is not in the Bible. It is no longer proacticed in most Anglican churches in this country.
If a wife has to obey in all things, then she cannot attend a university without permission, get a job, leave the house, eat what she likes, go to the gym, save for retirement without permission from her husband.
If he finds that she has bought a ten dollar gift for a friend without permission even if she is earning the money, he can punish her disobedience. This should be illegal.
I do not know what stance you take. You say a wife has to obey but you exclude the most important things in life. Perhaps you think that in the matters of taste a wife has to obey, in matters of decor or holiday planning. I really don’t know.
Regarding medical emrgencies. When the children are little, the mother is connected in an intimate way with her child. If the husband simply takes charge because this is taught in the pulpit, it can endanger the life of a child. This is wrong. The mother should not be prevented by threats of punishment by her husband from interacting with the medical personnel.
Since at least 5 percent, if not 10 percent of women experience violence and coercion in the home, the minister of every single church should be obligated to preach about the basic human rights of women.
Those preachers who don’t do this, either don’t care about abused women – who exist whether he knows it or not – OR they are willfully ingnorant of the realities of life.
I am feeling quite ill right now about how you have dismissed violence and packaged it so as not to ever think that a woman really suffers and you have dismissed this as a concern.
I don’t wnat to talk about myself but there was a woman who told John Piper to his face, that her husband required her to ask permission to go from room to room because of Piper’s teaching. Did Piper care about this woman? Did he apologize or change his teaching? Not that I ever heard!
Every situation has its unbelievable tales. The truth is so disgusting and so strange that I will not burden you with it. But you must not let your own imagination ever limit your awareness of the complete degradation and humiliationa that one person can visit on another.
Any preacher who preaches submission of wives and does not outline the basic human rights of women, as actually being human beings, is completely and utterly irresponsible. It is a disgrace. The ministers of the Sydney diocese ought to be trained in these things before they get into the pulpit.
If you do not want to be considered criminal then you must do something to act as responsible citizens. I have difficulty considering your religion as Christian. I am sure you must see that I cannot clasify a movement, which to me is filled with the acceptance of coercion and degradation, as a Christian religion.
Hi Kristen,
Well, it’s possibly just a feature of something that seems to be one (or two or three) of my distinctive traits – at least others seem to have your kind of reaction at times to things I say, and it seems to be for the same reason. This little thing touches on something pretty important for me, so this’ll take a few words.
First, I don’t hang much on words, but on concepts. What does the person mean by the word, not which word they are using, is more my kind of question – particularly because I think dictionary definitions are only useful as a starting point to understand a word, most words have a linguistic range that can overlap with other words. “Submit”, “obey” – those are words that are closely related in terms of the concepts they cover, although each has a domain missing in the other.
Second, and flowing from that, I try and listen carefully to what the other person is getting at, and answer them in the terms they use, even if they are not the ones I would choose, unless I really do need to reframe the terms of the issue to have any chance of communicating my position. It’s too cheap and too defensive to be constantly saying, ‘well that’s not a word I’d use, I’d use this word.’ My response to that is invariably ‘Well, lardy de da Lord Muck! Just play the ball where it lies, don’t move it because that’ll help you get closer to the hole in a single shot.’ (You can imagine I rarely say that ‘out loud’ on a thread unless the person has been utterly insufferable.) That’s part of my commitment to speaking to the actual person in front of me, not using their (or only using – I am conscience that this is public, not private) comment as a launching pad to say what I want to say.
Third, I’m committed to speaking bluntly and plainly and not sugar coating things or playing my hand out defensively. We live in an age that is under a great cloud of a hermeneutic of suspicion. Everyone knows that people use words, not to speak the truth plainly and accept whatever consequences, but to create an effect in the hearers to incline them to their position irrespective of its merits.
+People speak as though their view is only associated with good results, and there’s never any real price tag for it (they’ll concede something under pressure, but it always, on reflection still makes it look good – like the stock answers to ‘what are you not good at’ in interviews), and there’s nothing it struggles to answer well. That’s ridiculous – even Jesus came to bring a sword, not peace, and faith in him brings persecution and suffering, and division within a family. The Christian faith, and the Bible itself, as far as I can see, can offer no answer at all for how evil ever arose given that creation is entirely an expression of the perfect and exhaustive goodness of God.
+People choose words, not because they will best express what they think, but because those words are thought to get the best response from others, and make the speaker feel less uncomfortable about their view.
+People are constantly posturing, trying to present an idealised view of themselves (often very badly and so the irony is just thick) – they have to tell people (either verbally or on threads) how they should see them, and how they should see their opponent’s words and arguments. “People should listen to me because I’m x, or have done y, and only someone poor at logic would think z has any value as an argument’. All of that shows simple contempt for the readers/hearers. Just make your case, and let them pass verdict. Don’t be the prosecution and the judge and the jury for them!
All of that comes together for me here. Do most complementarians I know want to say ‘women obey your husbands’ is the best way of describing their view? Probably not. Paul is probably indicating an important difference between the two relationships (and showing that they are analogous to each other, not copies of each other) by saying children ‘obey’ and wives ‘submit’. But, especially, for Anglicans, it’s in the Prayer Book, so we have to deal with that. We consider our view to be reflecting tradition, and Suzanne is another Anglican and she was the one with whom I was in conversation.
But even for non-Anglicans, the question for me becomes would Suzanne recognise much difference in substance between my distinction between wives ‘obeying’ their husbands and wives ‘submitting to the authority’ of their husbands? I doubt it. Hence, any attempt to bring that distinction in was only an exercise in ‘defensive rhetoric’ and not in actually giving Suzanne an answer she would reconginse. It would be basically trying to make sure that the ‘soft comp’ club don’t withdraw my membership card for breaking ranks, not scaring off the undecided, and not upsetting egals who are quick to suspect me of thinking women are inferior. It would just be to make me look good. I think most people won’t see much real difference between ‘submit to authority’ and ‘obey’ so just ‘own’ the word ‘obey’ if you’re a comp and wear the fact that it doesn’t make you look nice.
Try and then show what’s important to you that you think makes a big difference and that leads you to prefer ‘submit to authority’, but too much trying to be nice, in our culture is part of our culture’s integrity crisis. I think that infects egalitarianism like a plague – I’ve rarely met a ‘nicer’ theological movement (apart from Open Theism, whose view of God is so nice it’s virtually cotton candy), but I’ll be blown if I give in to that pressure in ‘my’ own movement. Complementarians just have to stop try winning the ‘nice’ battle, in my view. And as that’s my view, I’ve stopped trying to win it. I try and be nice personally, but ruthlessly edit out anything in my writing that I think tries to make me look nice.
I think we are doing theological (and all other forms of serious intellectual pursuits) discourse poorly for these kinds of reasons. We’ve stopped being genuinely servants of the truth, and have become simply the advocates of our positions. What you see is part of my being counter-cultural.
And it is an expression of my fundamental trust in the basic reader’s ability to muddle through that they don’t need me to play defensively – they may be surprised at times, but if they stay with me, only a few ‘people of good hearts’ will conclude, like Melinda did, that I speak to manipulate. Most will (hopefully) see that the opposite has to be the case if they stick with me over the long haul.
And that will be an earned credibility that will outweigh pretty well anything people can achieve by using these normal methods. They will need to join me on my methodological terms to seem as plausible to the ‘core readers’ – which means they too will have to aim to speak the truth as plainly as possibly, not as advantageously to their cause as possible, to be in the running. And that’ll serve my bigger agenda of doing my bit in this little part of the cyberworld to reverse the current trajectories I see.
Mark
You have been very careful to present yourself as someone who supports the teaching of wifely obedience, AND as some who supports basic human rights for women.
So far, you have not given any examples of how this is possible. I think many ministers avoid the real life consequences of their own preaching by not facing up to reality.
This is what I saw. Ministers were not completely unsympathetic to long term outragious suffering. But they were completely unaware of the fact that they could have been aware that this kind of thing goes on in any human society. They were irresponsible.
Suzanne,
This is not helping. You got the wrong end of the stick everywhere. And in my judgement it is because you read me angry and then made your comment angry. I am going to explain where you went wrong, and then what happens from here as a consequence, because I am not going to allow this to continue. I am not going to have one person spewing fury over these threads, however justified she might think she is to have that anger.
Read the following very carefully, and if you think you might misunderstand anything I’m saying here, ask a genuine question – short and to the point, about the meaning of specific phrases only – before commenting again.
That is almost exactly what I said, with a bonus final sentence that has nothing to do with anything I said anywhere. I phrased it more positively and constructively, but any sane complementarian (i.e. – the ones I hang out with) would have seen that that was one reasonably clear implication of my words. You are disagreeing with me on something that my comment agrees with you on.
Further I never said that husbands can punish their wives. That’s part of my ‘so far out there that it is off the map’ category. Of course husbands cannot punish their wives. They shouldn’t eat them either. Those two are on about the same level for me. I would consider a husband punishing his wife on about the same level as one who ate his wife.
No. I did not do that. And nothing in my words can be read to give that meaning. I gave an unequivocal statement that physical violence is an abuse of basic human rights. I then offered an example of a difficult pastoral situation – where both parties are acting violently – as I thought it would flag where you and I might have some differences.
From that you have then deduced a whole bunch things about me that are simply false, and were not anywhere in the words I used. You never asked me what I would do if a woman came to me asking for help in a situation of violence, let alone life-threatening violence. If you had bothered to do that before jumping in boots and all you would find out that I would immediately refer such a woman over to a woman’s refuge and would defer to them (as they’d be better qualified on the legal issues and are hardly anti-wives) about whether the police should be involved (and if the wife wanted them involved I wouldn’t even need to do that). And if my overall stance on this wasn’t clear after two years of preaching so that any woman in my congregation in fear of violence didn’t think of me as one of the first people she’d go to then I’d consider to have failed.
The situation you raise is clearly NOT the one I did – if one person is afraid of violence from the other (let alone life-threatening) then that cannot be ‘mutual violence’. You took my scenario, changed it completely then condemned me for it. And this from a person who claimed I told lies about her for actually reading your words carefully and has twice now failed to answer my question as to whether I read you correctly.
My scenario was – two violent people are married. In such a situation – where neither party wants the police involved (implicit in my description I agree), and where each party sees themselves as giving as good as they are getting (again implied), then sending one of the couple to jail is not likely to help the marriage, the violence in the long-term, or their Christian faith – they will both likely feel betrayed by ‘the Church’.
Obviously if I thought someone’s life was in danger that would change things (see my unequivocal affirmation of basic human rights). But I’d intervene knowing that the cost could be to crush the faith of two very imperfect believers (and I’d trust God with that and do it, but I wouldn’t kid myself that it mightn’t have that cost).
I offered a very hard scenario having offered an absolute affirmation to your list. I did so as a gesture of good will in the interests of full disclosure. You ignored all of that in your response.
to be continued
concluding
Further, we all know words are a form of violence because many women suffer abuse from husbands who never raise a finger against them but whose every word is calculated to tear them apart. What you are classifying as ‘neat categories of violence’ is an attempt to recognise that abuse can happen even when the courts can’t get photographic evidence of it. You condemn me for making violence acceptable, when my intent is to recognise that real damage can be done and the courts are relatively unable to prosecute – and that that is still an offense to God.
You have misrepresented and misread me in a simply epic way. So here’s what happens from here. Take this example of your attempt at reading me and making inferences:
Bluntly, all this shows is that you have no idea what I think and simply trying to push me into whatever cookie cutter view of complementarianism exists in your head. You also have no grasp of how I put various principles together to function in the real world and so force on me the most simplistic reasoning possible.
And I have no interest in informing you differently because in my judgement you are too angry to listen. I’m unlikely to answer any more of your questions as things stand for the same reason, and will likely discourage other complementarians from interacting with you for the same reason.
That’s where things stand at the moment. If you want them to change you will need to take the initiative now as the older person out of the two of us, and say what is going to happen differently. As the younger person I will then let you know how acceptable that is to me and we’ll work from there. The initiative is with you to offer something genuinely different, and I will negotiate from there, and neither of us can impose a way forward on the other.
Apart from that, I would like you to consider offering me two apologies.
First for this comment of yours. In my opinion it was a disgraceful reply to a genuine attempt to answer what you claimed were genuine questions asked by an old lady who had never heard such things affirmed from the pulpit. You are lucky you said it to me – if you had treated anyone else like this I wouldn’t ask for an apology it would be requirement for you staying on the threads. In this case it is not a requirement, you are free to not apologise to me if that seems right to you.
Second for your claim that I lied about you. You have twice failed to answer my question about how ‘should be illegal’ does not equate to ‘should be a criminal’ but have twice reaffirmed that such teachings should be illegal. For the third time, please either explain how that doesn’t equate to ‘should be a criminal’ or give a genuine apology for claiming that I lied about you – for that was a far more serious claim than simply saying I’d misunderstood you. I would do this for you, and have offered it already if I have misunderstood you. Please consider offering me the same courtesy in reply.
Finally, a strong caution. I think you need to try and pull your tone back. This site has standards for the commentators and the bloggers. You are in the most egregious breach of those standards of anyone I have read on any thread in my association with this site. You were abused and so allowances are made, but for the first time, I am going to have to go to the guys hosting this site as to whether they are comfortable with your continued involvement here.
If nothing else, you are, by the standards of NSW law (which are ridiculously strict) arguably defaming people and I think the legal guy is going to have to read your comments to see if you have made Matthias liable for civil prosecution (I suspect not, but the law often surprises me). I shouldn’t have to be doing that. You simply have to scale things back, or go somewhere else where they like their debates ‘served hot’ and the legal framework supports that.
Yes, Mark, you have completely misunderstood my comment. Totally. I did not at any time or in any way, suggest that you personally held to these things. Not at all. I don’t know how you came to this conclusion.
I am saying that if the husband is given authority over the wife IN ALL THINGS, these are the kinds of things that happen to people in real life.
I am saying that a complementarian pastor needs to recognize that these things happen and he needs to preach against these things.
I do not know how I could have been clearer on this.
I have not once in any way, accused you or any complemnetarian of doing anything at all other than not seeing the need to support the basic human rights of women from the pulpit.
You see this as unecessary. And I am saying that it is, in fact, necessary to support the basic human rights of women from the pulpit.
This is where we differ. I bave not made any other accusation of you in any way. I would like you to see where you have misread me.
I am truly saddened by the way you have rushed off your answer to me without reading my comment for its meaning.
I have just read started to read your second comment.
Let me say as I said before that I did not at any time attribute any of this to you. I have been clear that it is the unwillingness of ministers to realize that it is important to defend their basic human rights that is the problem.
It is this lack of awareness that is the problem. I think that I have been quite clear on this.
Next, I have often heard it said that God loves the sinncer and hates the sin.
It is in this way, that I say that it should be illegal to teach women that a vow of obedience means that they have to submit to their husband IN ALL THINGS. This is what I said. I don’t feel that I should apologize for saying something which I think you agree with
I will go back and read the rest of your comment now. Thank you.
This is what I wrote about you,
You have been very careful to present yourself as someone who supports the teaching of wifely obedience, AND as some who supports basic human rights for women.
So far, you have not given any examples of how this is possible.
This is very open ended and describes rather well how you present yourself. I have made not even one tiny comment on you or your personality, but only on your own words.
I also would like to say that it is wrong for a minister to wait until an abused wife comes to him. An abused wife is usually threatened with serious violence for seeking help.
Ministers must be proactive in preventing a woman from living with a lifetime of violence. A minister should not preach the submission of the wife without ALSO and AT THE SAME TIME preaching that women have basic human rights.
This is what I have been saying.
You wish to take things to another level. I am sorry about that. I cannot see anywhere that I have made a personal statement about you.
The most that I have said is the teaching a woman to SUBMIT (OBEY) TO THEIR HUSBAND IN ALL THINGS ought to be made illegal.
I stand by this, and I make no accusation that you or anyone else I have ever known had said this with the serious intent that it should be followed. I simply want people to be responsible for their words. Given the pain that many women have experienced in their lives, it seems like a small request.
I see now that you are going to have a someone with legal experience read my comments. I think that this is a great idea. Thank you for that.
Please feel free to follow my link back to my blog, and find my email in my profile. I look forward to hearing from you on this.
Click on my name on the right under “contributors” to find my email.
I would honestly be very interested in hearing whether it is against the law to say that “teaching a woman to make a vow to obey her husband in all things” should be made illegal. Somehow, I don’t think that it is against the law to say something like this, but I look forward to your consultation.
Suzanne,
Okay, this is a last attempt before we really do have to move things to another level. I’ll try and explain the problem again in terms of what you raise in these last couple of comments. I can see you’re really trying to get what I’m saying and why and that you find what I’m saying strange, let’s try and work together to understand each other.
You say this, and I am emphasising what for me are the key phrases:
From the context of these quotes I think the following is what is happening at this point.
You seem to be defending yourself from an accusation by me that you have claimed that I am guilty of trampling on women’s civil rights.
That’s not what’s going on from my point. I am not claiming that about you.
From my point you have claimed all sorts of things about me personally. Here are the things I think you said about me personally.
To me, that is “a personal statement about” me. That is tantamount to saying that I lied about you.
Here you claim that I organise violence into neat packages that make violence okay. You also claim that I would have to organize the violence into one of my categories before I would help her – something the police wouldn’t do.
Those are claims about me personally. You’re not saying I commit violence against women but you are still making very strong claims about me.
That is also a claim about me:
+I have dismissed violence against women
+I took a course of action so as not to ever think that a woman really suffers
+I dismissed it as a concern.
And that this is all true of me to such a degree that it has made you feel quite ill.
Those are all personal claims.
And they are all made in response to a comment where I attempted to say the opposite – that violent abuse of women (actually of anyone) is a violation of basic human rights, but to add some careful nuances as they matter in these debates.
This communication breakdown is a real problem, and we have to find a way for it to change or you are going to end up banned.
And that is primarily because of the issue connected to this statement by you:
I never said anything like that. Defamation laws are to do with saying things about people. You have named people and alleged things about them. And in NSW defamation law truth is not necessarily a defense in a defamation case. You have named several Christian leaders now and made serious allegations about them. Even if they were true the courts might still find grounds to decide you have committed defamation against them. And as Matthias hosted your comments and didn’t take your comments down on the spot (and ban you) the courts might also find Matthias to have ‘published’ your comments publicly and so also be liable.
I don’t have the legal training. But this is a real issue in NSW, where these threads are hosted.
At least consider walking away from the threads for a couple days while we discuss this (probably with one of the senior people at Matthias Media) by email. The dynamic between us at the moment isn’t working well, even when I’m trying to reach out and explain the legal issues of which you mightn’t be aware the communication is breaking down.
I think this needs to be continued privately, and recommend you take a break for a day or two until we resolve this.
Thank you for your response. All I have been saying is that any minister who preaches the submission of women should also preach that women have basic human rights. I don’t think that I have said any more than this.
It is true that I have implied that a minister that I know has preached the submission of women, and he has not seen the need to preach that women have basic human rights.
I don’t think this is defamation. I think this is normal human nature. I wish life weren’t like this. I truly do.
I think we can learn a lot from hindsight. John Piper was quite open about the fact that a woman told him that her husband made her ask permsission to go from room to room and that her husband said that he learned this from John Piper. This is in one of John Piper’s sermons. It is not defamation to recount what Piper has himself allowed to be posted on youtube.
I will not continue this to comment but I truly do not understand your reaction. I am sorry that you see this the way you do.
Some women have lived an entire life deprived in some areas of normal human agency. I wish that the basic rights of women as human being would be attended to. This is my wish.
I would like the lifelong difficulties of women in submission addressed. That is my wish. Thank you.
I had a dream to make my organization, however I did not have got enough of cash to do it. Thank heaven my fellow said to take the business loans. Thus I received the auto loan and made real my desire.
Hi Suzanne,
Thank you for your response, I think it shows we (and I am very happy to say that it is my problem too) can find a way past this communication breakdown. But I think it also confirms my request – you really should withdraw just for a day or two (in terms of publishing, by all means write the comments and save them) until we can sort this out off line.
People outside of NSW don’t usually get how inflexible NSW’s defamation laws can be. It doesn’t matter if you prove what you said was true. You can still be found guilty of defamation. The Piper case is clearly fine, I’m not so sure about all the others. I’m not saying you have defamed anyone by NSW law, but I think you might have and could do that as our interaction ‘winds you up’ and that, plus our impasse, means the safest course is just a temporary withdrawal.
I’ll email you my email address, and let’s continue this offline (after I’ve had some sleep – it’s 1 AM here).
I don’t want to see you leave the threads, especially under these circumstances (either by your choice or forced upon you by fiat), this is the way I think is best calculated to keep you here for the long haul.
Thank you for following up by email. I really don’t know how I might have defamed anyone. But I look forward to hearing from you. I have put my email in your contact message dialogue box along with a short comment.
Mark, you said,
I had a very clear and concise definition of what I thought “obey” meant. It means “you get told what to do, and you do it.” I gave my definition of what I think “submit” means, as the Bible uses it: “to yield or give in to another.” I agree that “submit to authority” is closer to “obey” than just “submit”—but how “submit to authority” works out depends highly on how the person in authority is using that authority. If the person in authority is not making commands, setting rules and giving orders, then “submit to authority” much more closely resembles “submit” than “obey.”
So the question in my mind is this. Do you (and other “soft” complementarians) advocate the giving of commands and orders and the setting of rules by the husband, for the wife to follow? Is this how you envision the proper use of your “authority?” Because if it is not, then I don’t think you really stand by that word “obey.”
Personally, I can’t see how a wife can in good conscience vow to “obey” her husband. As a full adult in a free society, she is accountable both to the laws of the land and to her God, to do what is right, to take responsibility for her own actions, and therefore not to surrender her will so completely to another fallible human being.
Now, I have probably missed much of the point here, but let me try to offer some thoughts.
I think part of the problem is that there is always a ‘hard case’ in mind. For a wife to obey her husband IN ALL THINGS… or even just to OBEY, there is always the thought of a certain abusive situation.
From what I’ve heard Mark say, for most of the comps he is in relationship with, this is just not the case. The men and women in those relationships are striving to be godly in their relationships.
Also, it seems that the teaching of submission and complementarianism is taken out of the context of the whole teaching of God’s truth, as if husbands are told to command but never told to serve and love and lay down their lives, and in my experiences this is just not true. Although, sin abounds everywhere.
Now, speaking of my experiences. I live in Africa. (and Kirsten – in Swahili the word for submit and obey are the same).
What does it look like for me to teach complementarianism here compared to Sydney?
In my churches in Sydney I would encourage the guys who on the whole were slack and would let the women take the lead and responsibility for most things, to pull their socks up, and to be godly examples of prayer and following Jesus.
Here – the guys are great at leading, and leading in prayer. But culturally, women are treated abominably. So I teach them time and time again that they must never abuse their wives, and that they need to be making sure the men in the churches are not doing that – and to be forceful about it.
But also, it means telling them that as the husband they need to be the one getting up before dawn to go to the creek to get water for the family, and not letting their wives do it all the time. And they need to be involved in the parenting of their children and teaching them about God – not offloading it to other people.
But one thing I say both places – being the husband means giving yourself up for the sake of your wife. It means denying yourself and doing all that you can to love and serve your wife and using all your energy to make her life a pleasure and joy and enabling her to follow Christ well.
My point being, I think the context of the teaching has been lost, and that it is worth addressing the context, and not just the hard cases.